Web Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: Better Than a Poke in the Eye With a Stick?
Author of this post: Bill Weye | About Blog Authors »
The World Wide Web Consortium is planning to implement a new version of the Web accessibility guidelines this year, and it seems like many people have had negative things to say about the version 2.0 update (not official yet). These guidelines affect the way designers and developers build sites for the disabled, so it’s more important than ever as the Web becomes the de facto repository for information, commerce and entertainment.
People smarter than I think the project is confusing, long overdue, and that the process of revision is broken.
Joe Clark and others have created a project to correct and extend the 1.0 Guidelines, a WCAG 1.1, if you will. Their project is called WCAG Samurai. Born out of frustration with the WCAG 2.0 direction, WCAG Samurai attempts to move the world of Web accessibility forward, without the help of the W3C.
They may be right, but Web developers still need guidance on how to create accessible Web sites. If clear, correct information isn’t available, then either no information or wrong-headed information will fill the void.
One thing I like about the direction of 2.0 is how they’ve tried not to dictate what technology or techniques are used for various “success criteria” (a new term in 2.0). That seems smart to me, to future-proof the guidelines, if you will. On the other hand, many of the guidelines are confusing or contradictory.
I’m no expert on Web accessibility, but I have been trying to build accessible sites for more than 6 years with the help of writing by people like Joe Clark and Molly Holzschlag. Recently I was lucky enough to work on updating a Web accessibility course that Molly developed for Sessions. The update tries to make the transition from WCAG 1.0 to 2.0 . . . boy, that didn’t feel much better than a poke in the eye with a stick!
It was a lot of work, and in the process of that work I had to create a cheat sheet for myself so I could keep track of the changes between the two WCAG versions. Anyhow, I thought I would share that cheat sheet with you. If you have any suggestions for updates, please let me know. In no way do I think this is the definitive cheat sheet, so I welcome your help.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Cheat Sheet
Links:
http://alistapart.com/articles/tohellwithwcag2
http://wcagsamurai.org/
http://joeclark.org/access/webaccess/WCAG/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/webstandards2008
http://www.molly.com
November 15th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Web Guidelines are confusing! I spent 1 year with W3C as a paid member and the process was time consuming and lengthy, no wonder things take time to get resolved.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 am
I agree with you that building a website that satisfies all accessibility criteria can be a huge endeavor , especially with larger sites. So why would anyone be motivated to do it?
1. The negative: fear, to avoid potential litigation as Target learned the hard way.
2. The positive: it’s the right thing to do. It serves those of us with disabilities and impairments, is good for business, and sets a good example for others.
In reality, the degree to which a web site meets accessibility guidelines is like so many things in life. It’s not all or none. It’s a spectrum of compliance and we should strive to the highest degree of accessibility we can. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.