Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the Internet. They are a set of guidelines that specify how to make content accessible, primarily for people with disabilities—but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones. The current version, WCAG 2.0, was published in December 2008 and became an ISO standard, ISO/IEC 40500:2012 in October 2012.

Earlier guidelines

The first web accessibility guideline was compiled by Gregg Vanderheiden and released in January 1995, just after the 1994 Second International Conference on the World-Wide Web (WWW II) in Chicago (where Tim Berners-Lee first mentioned disability access in a keynote speech after seeing a pre-conference workshop on accessibility led by Mike Paciello).[1]

Over 38 different Web access guidelines followed from various authors and organizations over the next few years.[2] These were brought together in the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines compiled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.[3] Version 8 of the Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines, published in 1998, served as the starting point for the W3C's WCAG 1.0.[4]

WCAG 1.0

The WCAG 1.0 was published and became a W3C recommendation on 5 May 1999. They have since been superseded by WCAG 2.0.

WCAG 1.0 consist of 14 guidelines—each of which describes a general principle of accessible design. Each guideline covers a basic theme of web accessibility and is associated with one or more checkpoints that describes how to apply that guideline to particular webpage features.

Each of the in total 65 WCAG 1.0 checkpoints has an assigned priority level based on the checkpoint's impact on accessibility:

WCAG Samurai

In February 2008, The WCAG Samurai, a group of developers independent of the W3C, and led by Joe Clark, published corrections for, and extensions to, the WCAG 1.0.[5]

WCAG 2.0

WCAG 2.0 was published as a W3C Recommendation on 11 December 2008.[6][7] It consists of 12 guidelines (untestable) organized under four principles (websites must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust) and each guideline has testable success criteria (61 in all).[8] The W3C's Techniques for WCAG 2.0[9] is a list of techniques that support authors to meet the guidelines and success criteria. The techniques are periodically updated whereas the principles, guidelines and success criteria are stable and do not change.[10]

Principles

Perceivable

Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

Operable

User interface components and navigation must be operable.

Understandable

Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.

Robust

Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG 2.0 uses the same three levels of conformance (A, AA, AAA) as WCAG 1.0, but has redefined them. The WCAG working group maintains an extensive list of web accessibility techniques and common failure cases for WCAG 2.0.[11]

Document history

The first concept proposal of WCAG 2.0 was published on 25 January 2001. In the following years new versions were published intended to solicit feedback from accessibility experts and members of the disability community. On 27 April 2006 a "Last Call Working Draft" was published.[12] Due to the many amendments that were necessary, WCAG 2.0 was published again as a concept proposal on 17 May 2007, followed by a second "Last Call Working Draft" on 11 December 2007.[13][14] In April 2008 the guidelines became a "Candidate Recommendation".[15] On 3 November 2008 the guidelines became a "Proposed Recommendation". WCAG 2.0 was published as a W3C Recommendation on 11 December 2008.

A comparison of WCAG 1.0 checkpoints and WCAG 2.0 success criteria is available.[16]

In October 2012, WCAG 2.0 was accepted by the International Organization for Standardization as an ISO International Standard, ISO/IEC 40500:2012.[17][18][19]

In early 2014, WCAG 2.0's Level A and Level AA success criteria were incorporated as references in clause 9.2 ("Web content requirements") of the European standard EN 301 549 published by ETSI.[20] EN 301 549 was produced in response to a mandate that the European Commission gave to the three official European standardisation bodies (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) and is the first European standard for ICT products and services.[21][22]

Legal obligations

Businesses that have an online presence should provide accessibility to disabled users. Not only are there ethical and commercial justifications[23] for implementing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, in many jurisdictions, there are also legal reasons. If a business's website is not accessibile, then the website owner could be sued for discrimination.[24]

In January 2012, the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) in the United Kingdom issued a press release stating that it had served legal proceedings against low-cost airline bmibaby[25] over their "failure to ensure web access for blind and partially sighted customers". As of October 2011, at least two actions against websites had been initiated by the RNIB, and settled without the cases being heard by a court.[24]

An employment tribunal finding against the Project Management Institute (PMI), was decided in October 2006, and the company was ordered to pay compensation of £3,000 for discrimination.[26]

The 2010/2012 Jodhan decision[27] caused the Canadian Federal government to require all online web pages, documents and videos available externally and internally to meet the accessibility requirements of WCAG 2.0.[28]

The Australian Government has also mandated via the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 that all Australian Government websites meet the WCAG accessibility requirements.[29]

The Israeli Ministry of Justice published regulations in early 2014, requiring Internet websites to comply with Israeli standard 5568, which is based on the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The main differences between the Israeli standard and the W3C standard concern the requirements to provide captions and texts for audio and video media. The Israeli standards are somewhat more lenient, reflecting the current technical difficulties in providing such captions and texts in Hebrew.[30]

References

  1. ↑ Vanderheiden, Gregg C. (31 January 1995). "Design of HTML (Mosaic) Pages to Increase their Accessibility to Users with Disabilities; Strategies for Today and Tomorrow". Trace Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Retrieved 2012-09-22.
  2. ↑ "References: Designing Accessible HTML Pages -- guidelines and overview documents". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 2012-09-22.
  3. ↑ "Trace Center". Trace Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Retrieved 2012-09-22.
  4. ↑ Vanderheiden, Gregg C.; Chisholm, Wendy A., eds. (20 January 1998). "Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines". Trace Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Retrieved 2012-09-22.
  5. ↑ WCAG Samurai Home Page
  6. ↑ "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 – W3C Recommendation 11 December 2008". W3.org. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  7. ↑ W3C: W3C Web Standard Defines Accessibility for Next Generation Web (press release, 11 December 2008).
  8. ↑ "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0". W3C. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  9. ↑ "Techniques for WCAG 2.0". W3C. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  10. ↑ "Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria". W3C. Retrieved 2014-12-17.
  11. ↑ "Techniques for WCAG 2.0". W3.org. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  12. ↑ "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 – W3C Working Draft 27 April 2006". W3C.
  13. ↑ "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 – W3C Working Draft 17 May 2007". W3C.
  14. ↑ "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 – W3C Working Draft 11 December 2007". W3C.
  15. ↑ "WCAG 2.0 Candidate Recommendation Implementation Information". W3C.
  16. ↑ "Comparison of WCAG 1.0 Checkpoints to WCAG 2.0, in Numerical Order". W3.org. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  17. ↑ Henry, Shawn (2012-10-15). "WCAG 2.0 is now also ISO/IEC 40500!". World Wide Web Consortium. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
  18. ↑ "W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 approved as an ISO/IEC International Standard". World Wide Web Consortium. 2012-10-15. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
  19. ↑ "ISO/IEC 40500:2012 - Information technology -- W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0". ISO. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
  20. ↑ ETSI: EN 301 549 V1.1.1 (2014-02): Accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services in Europe. Accessed 27 November 2015.
  21. ↑ CEN-CENELEC: New European Standard will help to make ICT products and services accessible for all. 19 February 2014. Accessed 27 November 2015.
  22. ↑ CEN-CENELEC: Mandate 376. (No date). Accessed 27 November 2015.
  23. ↑ "Commercial Justifications for WCAG 2.0". Isamuel.com. 2012-04-12. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  24. 1 2 "Disabled access to websites under UK law". Out-Law.com. October 2011. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  25. ↑ "serves legal proceedings on bmibaby". RNIB. 2012-01-27. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  26. ↑ "Computer-based exam discriminated against blind candidate". Out-law.com. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  27. ↑ "Jodhan decision". Ccdonline.ca. 2012-05-30. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  28. ↑ "Canadian Treasury Board Secretariat Standard on Web Accessibility". Tbs-sct.gc.ca. 2011-08-01. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  29. ↑ "Accessibility". Web Guide. Retrieved 27 July 2013.
  30. ↑ "Israel Technology Law Blog, Website Accessibility Requirements".

External links

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