18 Best Accessible WordPress Themes (2023)
Do you need an accessible and ADA-compliant WordPress theme? This list consists of our carefully reviewed selections for multiple web projects. (Sorted!)
Enjoy the power of accessible themes instead of building your website from scratch.
You’ll save a lot of time, no need to worry about how to structure design and panic about performance.
Remove the barriers that exclude people from using your page with a SOLID theme.
No limits. Enhance usability.
You don’t need to be tech-savvy to create an accessible-ready website.
We made sure to include only winning WordPress themes.
Start strong. Finish stronger.
Best-Performing Accessible WordPress Themes
1. Polyclinic
To provide the most accessible medical websites to your patients, you must evaluate Polyclinic. It’s one of the best accessible WordPress themes available for health care and medical sites.
Polyclinic complies with and surpasses WordPress accessibility requirements. The theme contains and applies proper headings structure uses ARIA landmark roles and attributes.
Also, it adds informative “read more” links, keyboard-accessible navigation (for mobile navigation, too), and skip links.
The default color scheme matches the AA color contrast ratio, contributing to the theme’s usability.
With Polyclinic, you can create stunning pages WITHOUT hassle as it integrates Beaver Builder.
More info / Download Demo2. Icelander
If you plan to build a website that will be fully accessible-ready for a business portfolio or an eCommerce website (compatible with WooCommerce), you should see Icelander. The theme is well coded, optimized, reliable, and flexible.
Specifically, it passes WCAG 2.0 level AA and Section 508 requirements to ensure the accessibility-ready feature.
Icelander ensures that your website will be mobile-first and looks good on all possible devices.
Meanwhile, easy drag and drop page building is trendy and beneficial. (You can create pages with little effort.)
You can edit colors, layout, typography, and other elements and see its live preview. Hence, you lessen the time spent building your site with your preferences.
More info / Download Demo3. Monument Valley
In this list of accessible WordPress themes, you can find different designs to fit your needs. Here’s Monument Valley, an accessible WooCommerce and business theme that makes your content readable and presents it in a modern and beautiful style.
The theme strictly adheres to the WordPress accessibility guidelines that boost your SEO optimization.
Monument Valley uses Beaver Builder, but you can also opt for WPBakery, Elementor, or other page builders.
It has three awesome homepage variations: elegant home, portfolio home, or shop home. (Single-click installation supported.)
Last but not least, it’s also optimized for speed to help improve the site’s performance.
More info / Download Demo4. Cindy
Cindy is an engaging Accessible WordPress theme for anything government-related. If you are building a website for the local community, this tool will greatly help you.
Avoid starting from scratch and enjoy using Cindy’s predefined page layouts and features instead. This helps you speed up the setup process. It only takes you a few minutes.
Amazing!
Of course, you are welcome to perform any customization improvement, precisely tailoring Cindy to your needs. With the Loco Translate plugin compatibility, you can also translate Cindy to any language you want.
More info / Download Demo5. Angelica
Building an online bookstore happens much quicker than you think. Angelica is a solution that delivers all the necessary material to enjoy a quick start.
There is no need to be a pro at web development and design. Everyone succeeds with Angelica.
Some features contain disabilities-friendliness, mega menu, blog section, drag, and drop page builder compatibility, and great support.
Angelica also follows all the latest SEO and modern web trends, so you know that the performance of your bookstore website will always be first-class.
More info / Download Demo6. Björk
Bring to fruition an online portfolio that will amaze and inspire everyone. You can achieve a remarkable outcome that will turn heads with Björk.
This accessible WordPress theme contains many ready-to-use index and internal layouts. Even though Björk works smoothly out of the box, altering it to your needs and regulations is a piece of cake.
Björk’s engaging structure will help boost your online presence to the next level. Activate Björk with a single click, import the demo content and start making moves.
You will have a finished product ready to hit the web sooner than later.
More info / Download Demo7. Muse
Flexibility is necessary when building a website. Here’s Muse, a music WordPress theme made with accessibility-ready in mind.
It contains 7 ready-to-use samples that you can import with a single click. Create a unique music website in no time with Muse’s endless elements!
Moreover, it implements the readability of content for blind users and voice readers.
The WooCommerce integration feature allows you to sell various products related to your niche.
More info / Download Demo8. Salmon
Navigation, links and forms should adhere to the standards when building an accessibility-ready website.
Salmon is a restaurant theme for pubs, pizzerias, bars, or online shops. Salmon contains 6 ready-to-use demos. It’s also fully customizable and highly optimized for mobile.
This theme supports the convenience of the drag and drop page building technique. (0 programming knowledge necessary.)
Salmon also uses big and clear call-to-actions, implements readability, and emphasizes color contrast, so contents can be accessible BY EVERYONE regardless of their condition.
More info / Download Demo9. Talemy
If you plan to build an education website, you should ensure it is accessibility-ready. Here’s Talemy, an LMS education theme we needed to include in this list of accessible WordPress themes.
It contains 4 amazing, pre-built demos you can install with one click. Talemy can build a powerful website to help you reach a wider audience.
Furthermore, this theme is compatible with the Elementor page builder to build pages easily. You can create pages with your preferences without any experience.
You can also manage courses with Talemy and the integration of LearnDash. In addition, it is fully compatible with Events Calendar Pro and includes more than 20 page builder widgets.
More info / Download Demo10. Crocal
Crocal is an accessible WordPress theme with an option to create multiple websites. It is a creative and premium kit of goodies that you can utilize for nearly any page.
From online shops and portfolios to agency, architecture, sport, food, wedding and many more websites, Crocal can easily access them. Numerous demos come fully functional out of the box.
Handy grid system, WPBakery, fast loading speed, mobile compatibility, Slider Revolution, you name it, Crocal rocks all the necessary. You can also watch video tutorials first to get the gist of it.
Establishing a website with Crocal will be a SMOOTH sail.
More info / Download Demo11. Draven
Draven is an outstanding solution for building pages with any of the available 28 demos. With Draven, you can go after the creation of the exact website you can think of.
Draven also has the Elementor page builder for effortless editing and remarkable demos.
Still, if you fancy the look of the sample, feel free to employ it as-is and save yourself even more time.
The entirely responsive structure guarantees that a Draven page will operate on all devices like a charm.
Other delicacies include 70+ elements, auto updates, parallax effects, mega menu, and RTL support. Get online with a BANG and take the industry by storm.
More info / Download Demo12. Independent
If you are particularly interested in establishing a versatile, convenient, and easy-to-use blog or online magazine, Independent has you sorted out in full.
Game, photography, technology, food, travel, organic, sports, and all these other samples are predefined and set to realize a spectacular page. Every layout features a clean and appealing look, ensuring a distraction-free reading experience.
Moreover, you can edit and correct the default look, so it matches your signature style easily, thanks to WPBakery. Header and footer styles, custom widgets, 27 independent blocks, and dark and light modes are all the different features of Independent.
Independent is entirely monetizable to turn your blog or online magazine into a money machine.
More info / Download Demo13. Salient
Here’s Salient, one of the accessible WordPress themes you should evaluate for your business.
Salient is a multipurpose theme equipped with 30+ ready-to-use demos.
Furthermore, since Salient is compatible with WPBakery, you can create stunning pages easily and instantly via drag and drop. It also works with WooCommerce for effective selling on your website.
Social media is one of the ideal and best marketing strategies that’s effective. Hence, Salient is integrated with social functions to build its brand and grow the audience to drive sales.
More info / Download Demo14. Ginger
Make your website accessible on all devices and for various types of visitors. Here’s Ginger that will help you create an accessibility-ready site in no time!
Ginger is a restaurant WordPress theme that contains 12 pre-built demos for different websites. You can build nice, professional, accessibility-ready websites for restaurants, bistros, online shops, etc.
Since it is fully customizable, you can create the finest design with your preferences on the colors, fonts, layout, and other elements.
The theme also contains a nice, functional, accessible reservation system — easy online table bookings.
More info / Download Demo15. Dox
Looking for a creative theme for your portfolio, business, or eCommerce site that is accessibility-ready? Why not see Dox that we’ve included in these accessible WordPress themes?
Dox is a creative theme with 20+ amazing and ready-to-use demos that are accessibility-ready for disabled users. As the theme has semantic, quality codes, Dox is known to have the highest performance grade on GTMetrix using PageSpees and YSlow.
Dox offers ample design possibilities using image filters, patterns, masks, and decorative borders. The theme also contains 89-pixel perfect patterns, 25 image masks, 870+ Google Fonts, and 20+ decorative borders.
More info / Download Demo16. Life Coach
Life Coach is worthy add to these accessible WordPress themes. It has 4 pre-built demos that you can import with one click. With this theme, you can build a successful life coach website!
This theme has 7 custom post types, 5 custom widgets, and 18 custom shortcodes to build a complete and functional coaching site. With its big, bold header and captivating images, you’ll have no trouble capturing visitors’ attention.
Life Coach has also integrated with Events Calendar with animated countdown, events map, tickets buy link and more. Other essential pages include testimonials, blogs, podcasts, teams and more.
Make your coaching services stand out online.
More info / Download Demo17. Directory
If you need a directory theme that features accessibility, you can pick Directory. It’s one of the best accessible WordPress themes to help you create a successful directory website.
This theme is jam-packed with directory elements. It also allows you to organize elements without technical knowledge.
Because monetization is part of the website’s revenue acquisition, Directory ensures you can monetize via AdSense and more.
You can also charge users for adding listing or submissions on your site as part of your monetization strategies. The payment gateway uses PayPal, Skrill, Authorize.net, and Bank Transfers.
More info / Download Demo18. X
X is a multipurpose theme that is suitable for these accessible WordPress themes. It’s one of the best-selling themes on Themeforest. It comes with 15 unique demos for various business and non-profit organizations.
X contains premium plugins, a bunch of shortcodes, and widgets that boost the theme’s performance.
Visitors of different devices can easily access content on your site due to X’s responsive layout.
This theme is compatible with bbPress for adding a wonderful forum to your site. You can also add a blog and sell products and services online.
X has NO limits.
More info / Download DemoBonus: Website Accessibility Checklist
- Ensure that web pages are readable enough. Avoid text bloat, lengthy paragraphs, lack of images, small font size, long and complicated sentences. Avoid abbreviations, choose fonts wisely, use visual hierarchy, use lists, etc.
- Ensure that the navigation menu is fully responsive and consistent. Moreover, you should also provide access via the keyboard.
- Use colors with care. Well, it’s fun and exciting to mix and match the colors that you prefer most. However, you may need to consider which color best suits visitors with impaired vision or color blindness. You can find a list of useful color tools to find and fix the color issue on your website.
- Forms should be labeled properly and organized logically.
- The webpage structure and semantics should adhere to coding standards along with hierarchy. With such features, search engines will love your website.
- Images should be optimized. Compress large-size images to reduce their size as it may slow down the site load. Also, ALT text images must have significant descriptions, too.
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant.
These are some of the most important things accessible WordPress themes should have and consequently your website.
Related Posts
So, I am very confused by you having the Salient theme on this accessible theme list. I am currently using this theme and I am now searching for a better theme because Salient is not coded for accessibility. They have been asked to update the theme for this and it’s been in the cue for over 2 years. I am having to do a-lot of work to make the site pass accessible test. That’s for great suggestions regardless.
Try the Shapely free theme by Shapely. I’ve had them for years.
Brenda
At this point, I would just go with Webman (Oliver). The “Icelander” theme is one of the themes He has created. I wouldn’t trust anyone else at this point. I have tested a few and they aren’t accessibility friendly. If it’s taking you years, then I recommend switching themes. Your web host should be able to help you transfer everything from one theme to another and do a complete back up in the event something goes wrong.
Julie,
It is a great theme when it comes to accessibility and compliance but its design arguabbly isn’t the most modern today. It might all come down to personal preference but it is not going to win any awards but it does get the job done, so I guess that’s what count.