The document summarizes a presentation about CSIRO's use of WordPress for their websites. It discusses CSIRO's history and role as Australia's national science agency. It then covers how CSIRO centralized their websites on WordPress for accessibility and to communicate with broader audiences. CSIRO developed over 300 WordPress sites and 50 plugins/themes to manage their scientific content and address issues with third-party development and accessibility. The presentation concludes by discussing opportunities and challenges of structuring content and upcoming changes from Gutenberg.

1. Australia’s National Science Agency
The Science of WordPress
Andrew Wright
WordCamp 2019
CSIRO IMT Web Solutions
Web Developer/Administrator

2. • About CSIRO
• Some history of the web
• The scientific audience – does size matter?
• Our WordPress multisite solution
• Issues with third-party development
• Accessibility
• Our NBA theme
• Structuring content
• The future is looking Gutenberg (maybe)
Talk topics
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

3. • The Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation
• WiFi, Aerogard, CSIRAC,
radioastronomy, Moon landings
• 5,500 staff, 55 locations.
CSIRO
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

4. • Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web
at CERN.
• Australia’s first website was
life.anu.edu.au
• The days of simple HTML and
Mosaic were numbered.
The Web was built for science
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

5. • Centralisation of CSIRO websites
– www.csiro.au
• Communicating with a wider
audience.
• Maximising hits
Science for everyone
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

6. • Scientific communities can be small
but globally distributed.
• The reputation of the child
outweighs that of the parent.
• Just the facts!
Is bigger always better?
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

7. • Let’s talk science.
• Let’s make it look pretty too.
• But we don’t have the time!!!
Control, you must learn control!
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

8. • Over 300 WordPress Multisite sites -
https://research.csiro.au
• Numerous standalone sites -
https://blog.csiro.au ,
https://csiropedia.csiro.au …
• A lot of learning!
WordPress to the rescue!
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

9. • It’s us, not you
• Cost and lifespan
• Branding and flexibility
• Accessibility
Challenges of third-party development
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

10. • 18.3% of Australians live with disability affecting their daily activities.
• 12.1% of 35 to 44 year olds live with disability.
• 50.7% of Australians aged 65 and over live with disability.
• 85.4% of Australians aged 90 and over live with disability.
• 8% of males and 0.4% of females experience colour deficiencies
(colour blindness).
Accessibility statistics
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

11. • Focus states to allow for keyboard navigation.
• Correct use of semantic elements which describe the content in them instead
of using layout elements.
• Properly structured and labelled tables which include the scope attribute.
• Sufficient visual contrast between elements.
• Providing transcripts and captions for multimedia elements.
• Alt attributes for images
• Sliders and video backgrounds without proper pause states.
Common accessibility issues
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

12. • We have developed over fifty
plugins and themes.
• In 2018 we decided to consolidate
our theme development into a
common platform “NBA”, released
in mid-2019.
• Flexible enough to use on both
CSIRO and non-CSIRO branded
sites for a wide variety of
purposes.
Finding Utopia
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

13. • Colour schemes
• Banner images
• Single or multiple page sites
• Unlimited footer widget areas
• Additional widgets and shortcodes
• Partner logos
• Social media
• Accessibility
• More…
The NBA infrastructure list
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

14. • Use pages more than posts
• Content portability and flexibility is
important
• Custom post types and fields
• Page builders
Structuring content
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

15. • Lots of work to do, more features,
better administration
• Gutenberg – opportunities and
challenges.
The future
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

16. • The Web was built for sharing science.
• We utilise WordPress multisite and develop many of our own
plugins and themes.
• Content portability is important.
• Future challenges and opportunities.
Conclusion
The Science of WordPress | Andrew Wright

17. CSIRO IMT Web Solutions
Web Developer/Administrator
Thank you
Andrew Wright