Accessibility & RTL
Make the gallery usable for shoppers on screen readers and keyboards, and flip it for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
Accessibility
The Accessibility switch is on the Gallery → Gallery Slider sub-tab and it's on by default. See Interaction. With it on, the slider:
- labels its arrows "Previous slide" and "Next slide" for screen readers, and lets keyboard users reach and press them;
- announces slide changes to assistive technology, so a screen-reader user knows the photo has changed.
Leave it on. There's no visual difference for other shoppers.
Some things help regardless of the switch:
- Every photo has alt text. It comes from your image and product titles — see Captions & Alt Text for exactly where, and why descriptive titles matter.
- The lightbox is keyboard-friendly. Shoppers can move between photos with the arrow keys and close it with Escape.
Settings that make the gallery easier to use
A few choices go further than the switch:
- Think about AutoPlay. Photos that move on their own can be distracting, and some people can't read or look at a photo before it slides away. AutoPlay is on by default and keeps going after a shopper interacts with the gallery. If accessibility is a priority, turn AutoPlay off on the Gallery Slider sub-tab.
- Show navigation and pagination Always. Controls that appear only On Hover are hard to find with a keyboard and invisible on touch screens. See Navigation & Pagination.
- Keep enough contrast on the arrows. The default white arrow on a semi-transparent black square reads well on most photos. If you change Navigation Color, check it against both light and dark photos.
- Mind Mouse Wheel. With Mouse Wheel on, scrolling over the gallery changes slides instead of scrolling the page — which can trap people who scroll with a trackpad. It's off by default.
Right-to-left (RTL)
RTL Mode is on the Gallery → Gallery Slider sub-tab and is off by default. Turn it on for stores in right-to-left languages: the slider then runs from right to left — the first photo sits on the right and "next" moves leftward — matching how your shoppers read. See Interaction.
The Outside zoom style follows your site's direction on its own: on a site whose language is set to an RTL language, the zoom window opens to the left of the image instead of the right. See Image Zoom.
Set RTL in both places
RTL Mode controls the gallery's slider. Your theme and WordPress language decide the direction of everything else on the page. For a fully right-to-left store, set your site language in Settings → General and turn on RTL Mode here.
Things worth knowing
- These options apply to the slider layouts. The Gallery Slider sub-tab is hidden for the grid and scrolling layouts (Tiles, Hierarchy Grid, Modern Grid, Anchor Nav, Vertical Scroll), which don't slide.
- Both switches are in the free plugin.