Theme check
Is Sydney accessible?
No automated check can say that a theme is accessible. Here is what one found: on October 25, 2026, our check of Sydney 2.73 on its WordPress.org preview found 1 accessibility problem in the theme's own parts (its header, menus, footer and layout), 0 of them serious or critical.
We make Fixlight, a free WordPress plugin that fixes some of these problems, so we're not neutral. The measurements below are what our check found; anyone can repeat it with the same method.
What the check found
| Problem | Impact | Times | WCAG | Free Fixlight plugin fixes it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Page regions that cannot be told apart | Moderate | 1 | Best practice | No, needs a person |
The check also found 11 problems inside the sample posts themselves (text with too little contrast, links with no text, heading levels skip). Those come from WordPress.org's sample content, which is the same for every theme, so they're not counted here.
How we checked: One page, the theme's home page on WordPress.org's preview (wp-themes.com), which shows the same sample posts for every theme. It was loaded in a real browser and checked with axe-core's WCAG 2.2 A and AA rules and its best practices. Problems inside the sample posts are not counted against the theme, except colour problems its styling causes. Automated checks find many problems, but not all of them. Your site, with your own content, settings and plugins, will give different results. Sydney may have changed since October 25, 2026.
How to fix them
- Page regions that cannot be told apart. When two regions of the same kind exist (two navigation menus, for example), give each a different aria-label.
What the free Fixlight plugin does here
None of these is one the free plugin fixes on its own: it needs a change in the theme's settings or code. Fixlight lists it with the steps, and it also adds things automated checks don't flag, such as a skip link and visible keyboard focus, where a theme lacks them.
About Sydney
- By aThemes, 80,000+ active installs on WordPress.org (number 33 by installs when we checked).
- Version checked: 2.73. Preview: wp-themes.com/sydney/.
- Theme author? If you've fixed these, write to fixlight@fernwaylabs.com and we'll check again.