On Dec 12, 2008, W3C announced the publication of WCAG 2.0. Read the online press release and the guidelines.
The following are the key differences between 1.0 and 2.0 guidelines:
Principles: 1.0 has 14 principles at the highest level; 2.0 has only 4 principles at the highest level.
Technologies: 1.0 guidelines are very specific to HTML; 2.0 has a separate technique document that includes: HTML and XHTML, CSS, Server-side Scripting, SMIL, Plain Text, and ARIA techniques.
Priorities: Each guideline in 1.0 is assigned a priority and many of the guidelines are considered priority 2 and 3 guidelines which are “less important” than priority 1 guidelines. Each guideline in 2.0 is considered equally important and to have an equal priority, but each can be implemented to a lesser or greater level:: A (lowest level), AA, and AAA (highest level).
Some of the guidelines in 1.0 are left open to interpretation; 2.0 includes testable success criteria for each guideline. A comparison of 1.0 checkpoints to 2.0 can be found on the WCAG site.
Showing posts with label WCAG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WCAG. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Candidate Released
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group has just announced the publication of WCAG 2.0 as a W3C Candidate Recommendation on 30 April. WCAG 2.0 explains how to make Web sites, applications, and other content accessible to people with disabilities, and many elderly users.
Candidate Recommendation (CR) is a major step in the W3C standards development process; it signals that there is broad consensus in the Working Group and among public reviewers on the technical content of WCAG 2.0.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
UK government accessibility consultation
The UK government has issued a consultation document on Delivering Inclusive Websites.
It’s not finalised, as the consultation doesn’t end until November 13. It re examines PAS 78, recognises that the only way to find out if a Web site is accessible is to test it and it says that the minimum acceptable level of accessibility is Level-AA of WCAG 1.0 — so valid, semantic code becomes mandatory:
The minimum level of accessibility for all Government Web sites is Level Double-A of the W3C guidelines. Any new site approved by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Public Engagement and the Delivery of Service must conform to these guidelines from the point of publication.
Continuing stand alone sites must achieve this level of accessibility by December 2008. Web sites which fail to meet the mandated level of conformance shall be subject to the withdrawal process for .gov.uk domain names. Wow, tough love.
In addition companies who who manufacture Content Management Systems will be required to ensure that their products produce valid, semantic code and comply with authoring tool accessibility guidelines (ATAG) so that members of staff with disabilities can publish with them:
In order to build an accessible Web site, authoring tools must produce content that upholds Web content accessibility standards. This is especially important if the organisation will be using a Content Management System (CMS) to produce content automatically. This must be taken into account during the procurement of authoring tools and CMS.
Some vendors have started to take notice. Microsoft has acknowledged that Sharepoint 2007 won’t be WCAG level A or ATAG-compliant out of the box until the next release in 2009 or 2010.
It’s not finalised, as the consultation doesn’t end until November 13. It re examines PAS 78, recognises that the only way to find out if a Web site is accessible is to test it and it says that the minimum acceptable level of accessibility is Level-AA of WCAG 1.0 — so valid, semantic code becomes mandatory:
The minimum level of accessibility for all Government Web sites is Level Double-A of the W3C guidelines. Any new site approved by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Public Engagement and the Delivery of Service must conform to these guidelines from the point of publication.
Continuing stand alone sites must achieve this level of accessibility by December 2008. Web sites which fail to meet the mandated level of conformance shall be subject to the withdrawal process for .gov.uk domain names. Wow, tough love.
In addition companies who who manufacture Content Management Systems will be required to ensure that their products produce valid, semantic code and comply with authoring tool accessibility guidelines (ATAG) so that members of staff with disabilities can publish with them:
In order to build an accessible Web site, authoring tools must produce content that upholds Web content accessibility standards. This is especially important if the organisation will be using a Content Management System (CMS) to produce content automatically. This must be taken into account during the procurement of authoring tools and CMS.
Some vendors have started to take notice. Microsoft has acknowledged that Sharepoint 2007 won’t be WCAG level A or ATAG-compliant out of the box until the next release in 2009 or 2010.
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