Accessible Carousel & Slider – WCAG AA Compliant Slideshow

Accessible Carousel & Slider gives the WordPress block editor two accessibility-first blocks — a hero carousel / slider and a native card scroller — built to WCAG Level AA. Use it as an accessible carousel, slider, or slideshow that is fully keyboard-operable, screen-reader friendly, and responsive, with an always-visible pause control and no forced autoplay. Both are real Gutenberg blocks, so there are no shortcodes and nothing is hidden from assistive technology, plus ready-made patterns you can insert and edit.

Live demo: Try the accessible carousel & slider demo »

New in this version

• An in-editor Accessibility check with a live WCAG colour-contrast pass/fail readout for every colour pair, plus alt-text, heading and button-text checks — so you catch problems while you build.
• Full keyboard control: Left/Right arrow keys change slides and Home/End jump to the first/last slide.
• Slide changes are announced by title to screen readers, not just “Item 2 of 5”.
• Choose dots or a titled tab list for slide navigation, a visible slide counter, and a “Skip carousel” link.
• Reading-time pacing for autoplay so a slide is never advanced before it can be read (autoplay stays off by default).
• Optional, off-by-default visitor modes: a “View as list” reading mode and a dyslexia-friendly reading toggle.
• Windows High Contrast (forced-colors) support throughout.

Hero carousel (built to the W3C/WAI Carousels tutorial): each slide has a background image and a solid “contrast box” holding a heading, a paragraph, and an optional button, placed left, right, or bottom. The solid box guarantees readable text contrast over any image. No autoplay by default; when enabled, a configurable pause/stop control is always shown.

Card scroller: a native CSS scroll-snap row of cards. Because it uses real browser scrolling, it works with the keyboard, touch, the scrollbar, and screen readers with no JavaScript — and nothing is hidden from assistive technology, avoiding the focusable-but-hidden trap common to multi-slide carousels. “Cards per view” is pure CSS (it steps down to 2 then 1 on smaller screens), and there is no autoplay.

Patterns: insert ready-made layouts (hero overlay, hero card, autoplay showcase, minimal, features row, services row) from the Accessible Carousel category, then edit freely. To save your own configured layout as a template, use WordPress’s built-in “Create pattern” on the block toolbar.

Carousel accessibility features

• Carousel is a labelled region containing a semantic list of slides; with JavaScript off it degrades to a readable list.
• Controls are real buttons, fully keyboard operable, with no keyboard trap.
• Keyboard focus is never moved by next/previous or by auto-advance.
• A polite live region announces the new slide by title (e.g. “Slide 2 of 5: …”) on user-initiated changes; auto-rotation stays silent so it does not interrupt screen reader users.
• Full keyboard control: Left/Right arrow keys change slides and Home/End jump to the first/last slide, in addition to the on-screen buttons.
• A visible “2 / 5” slide-position indicator, plus an in-editor Accessibility check that flags weak colour contrast, missing alt text and vague button text as you build.
• Choose dots or a titled tab-list for slide navigation, and a “Skip carousel” link (WCAG 2.4.1) for keyboard users.
• Optional, off-by-default visitor modes: a “View as list” reading mode and a dyslexia-friendly reading toggle.
• No autoplay by default; when enabled, a stop/start control is always provided (WCAG 2.2.2), rotation pauses on hover and focus, and reading-time pacing can give each slide enough time to be read.
• Transition animations (fade or slide) are disabled automatically under prefers-reduced-motion.
• Background images are decorative by default, with a real alt-text option when the image is meaningful.
• Solid contrast box, 44px control targets, and a high-visibility focus indicator.

Card scroller accessibility features

• Native CSS scroll-snap: keyboard, touch, scrollbar, and screen readers all work with no JavaScript.
• The scroll region is itself keyboard-focusable and labelled, so it can be scrolled with the arrow keys.
• Cards are a real list; nothing is set to aria-hidden, so there is no focusable-but-hidden content.
• Each card link carries hidden context (e.g. “Learn more – Design”) so repeated links have distinct names (WCAG 2.4.4).
• No autoplay. Optional previous/next buttons are added only when the cards overflow, so there are never dead controls.
• “Cards per view” is responsive by CSS (desktop value, capped at 2 on tablet and 1 on mobile).

Links

• Plugin home & documentation
• Live demo
• More accessibility plugins from Ananyoo — further WordPress accessibility plugins are in active development.
• Support & contact

Privacy

This plugin collects no data, contacts no external services, and adds no front-end links.