Web Accessibility Initiative

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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) for people with disabilities. People with disabilities may encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web. Since people with disabilities often require non-standard devices and browsers, making websites more accessible also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources.

The W3C launched the Web Accessibility in 1997 with endorsement by The White House and W3C members.[1] It has several working groups and interest groups that work on guidelines, technical reports, educational materials and other documents that relate to the several different components of web accessibility. These components include web content, web browsers and media players, authoring tools, and evaluation tools.

Contents

[edit] Organization

WAI develops guidelines and other technical reports through the same process as other parts of the W3C.[2] Like other W3C initiatives, the WAI consists of several working groups and interest groups, each with its own focus. Only working groups can produce technical reports that become W3C recommendations. A working group can sometimes delegate specific work to a task force, which then presents its results back to the working group for approval. Interest groups may produce reports (for example, as W3C Notes), but not recommendations. Each of these types of groups (working group, task force, interest group) can have one or more mailing lists. They meet through conference calls at regular intervals (typically every week or every other week) and sometimes use web-based surveys to collect input or comments from participants. They can also meet face to face (one to four times per year).

[edit] Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG)

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and supporting resources for tools that create web content, ranging from desktop HTML editors to content management systems. The accessibility requirements apply to two types of things: the user interface on the one hand, and the content produced by the tool on the other. The working group consists of representatives from organizations that produce authoring tools, researchers, and other accessibility experts. The working group produced the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 in 2000 and is currently working on Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. It also published a document on Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility.[3]

[edit] Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG)

The Education and Outreach Working Group develops materials for training and education on Web accessibility. This working group has produced documents on a wide range of subjects, including:

  • Accessibility Features of CSS[4]
  • Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0[5]
  • Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility, a suite of documents about subjects such as conformance evaluation, evaluation approaches for specific contexts, involving users in web accessibility evaluation, and selecting web accessibility evaluation tools[6]
  • Planning Web Accessibility Training[7]
  • Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization[8]
  • How People with Disabilities Use the Web, a document that describes various fictitious characters with disabilities and how they use the Web in different scenarios[9]
  • many introduction pages on the WAI website.

Currently, the working group has a task force to support the work done in the WAI-AGE project. This project published a document that reviews literature about the needs of older users and compares these needs with those of people with disabilties as already addressed in WAI guidelines.[10][11]

The Education and Outreach Working Group can also review working drafts produced by other WAI working groups.

[edit] Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)

The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group develops technical specifications that support the accessibility evaluation and repair of Web sites. It also maintains a database of tools for evaluating Web sites and for making them more accessible (“repair”, “retrofitting”). The working group consists mainly of developers of such tools and researchers. Current work focuses on

  • Evaluation and Report Language (EARL): a language for expressing evaluation reports in a machine-readable way[12][13]
  • HTTP Vocabulary in RDF, which specifies how HTTP requests and responses can be expressed in RDF[14]
  • Representing Content in RDF, which specifies how content (retrieved from the Web or a local storage device) can be represented in RDF[15]
  • Pointer Methods in RDF, early work on how locations in and parts of online documents can be expressed in RDF.[16]

[edit] Protocols & Formats Working Group (PFWG)

The Protocols & Formats Working Group reviews all W3C technologies for accessibility before they are published as a recommendation. It has also published a note on accessibility issues of CAPTCHA[17], a paper on natural language usage for people with cognitive disabilities[18], and initial work on accessibility requirements for XML-based markup languages (XML Accessibility Guidelines).

In 2006, the working group started development of a set of document and specifications for accessible rich internet applications: WAI-ARIA. [19] [20] [21]

[edit] Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG)

The goal of the Research and Development Interest Group is

  • to increase the incorporation of accessibility considerations into research on Web technologies, and
  • to identify projects researching Web accessibility and suggest research questions that may contribute to new projects.[22]

This interest group has seen very little activity since 2004. Its current charter expired at the end of 2006.[22]

[edit] User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG)

The User Agent Accessibility Guideline Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and other documents to promote the accessibility of user agents: browsers and plug-ins. The working group consists mainly of organizations that develop user agents, researchers, and other accessibility experts. The working group published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0) as a W3C Recommendation in 2002, and is currently working on the second version of this specification.

[edit] WAI Interest Group (WAI IG)

The WAI Interest Group is an open group with a mailing list to which anyone can subscribe. W3C staff post announcements of new WAI documents to this mailing list to invite reviews and comments. Members of the list also post announcements of relevant events and publications, and ask advice on issues related to web accessibility. The language of the mailing list is English; there are no parallel mailing lists in other languages.

[edit] Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG)

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group produces guidelines, techniques and other supporting documents relating to the accessibility of Web content. Web content refers to any information you may find on a Web site: text, images, forms, sound, video, etcetera, regardless whether these were produced on the server side or on the client side (with a client-side scripting language such as JavaScript). Thus, the guidelines also apply to rich internet applications.

The working group consists of representatives from industry, accessibility consultancies, universities, organizations that represent end users, and other accessibility experts.

The working group published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) as W3C Recommendation in 1999, followed by techniques documents in 2000. In 2001, the working group started work on WCAG 2.0.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is probably the most well-known working group in WAI; the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are often simply referred to as “the WAI guidelines,” even though WAI also produces other guidelines and specifications.

[edit] WAI Coordination Group

The WAI Coordination Group co-ordinates that activities of the WAI working groups (and interest groups). Its activities are not public.

[edit] Guidelines and technical reports

[edit] Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

For more details on this topic, see Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (known as WCAG) were published as a W3C Recommendation on 5 May 1999. A supporting document, Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0[23] was published as a W3C Note on 6 November 2000. WCAG 1.0 is a set of guidelines for making web content more accessible to persons with disabilities. They also help make web content more usable for other devices, including mobile devices (PDAs and cell phones). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are recognized as a de facto standard and have served as a basis for legislation and evaluation methodologies in many countries.

The WCAG working group is currently working on a new version of the guidelines. The development of WCAG 2.0 is based on very different requirements from WCAG 1.0:

  • the guidelines needed to be technology-neutral, whereas WCAG 1.0 was strongly based on HTML and CSS;
  • the guidelnes needed to be worded as testable statements instead of instructions to authors.

The combination of more general applicability and higher precision proved very challenging. Currently, WCAG 2.0 is in the Candidate Recommendation phase, which means that the working group needs to find evidence that the guidelines can be implemented in real websites.

[edit] Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)

Developed by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the ATAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 3 February 3 2000. The ATAG is a set of guidelines for developers of any kind of authoring tool for Web content: simple HTML editors, tools that export content for use on the Web (for example, word processors that can save as HTML), tools that produce multimedia, content management systems, etcetera.

The goal is for developers to create tools that:

  • are accessible to authors regardless of disability,
  • produce accessible content by default,
  • support and encourage authors to create accessible content.

The ATAG working group is currently working on a second version of the guidelines. A Last Call Working Draft was published in November 2004 [24] [25] but subsequent versions were published as normal working drafts. Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0[26] are also available as a working draft.

[edit] User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)

Developed by the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the UAAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 17 December 2002. The UAAG is a set of guidelines for user agent developers (such as web browsers and media players) aimed at making the user agent accessible to users with disabilities. Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0[27] was published as a W3C Note on the same day; it provides techniques for satisfying the checkpoints defined in UAAG 1.0. Working group members also produced other supporting documents, including initial notes on How to evaluate a user agent for conformance to UAAG 1.0[28]; this document was not formally approved by the working group. No user agents have been reported as fully conforming to UAAG 1.0.

The working group is currently working on a new version of the guidelines. The first public draft of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was published on 12 March 2008.[29]

[edit] XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG)

The XAG explains how to include features in XML applications (i.e. markup languages conforming to the XML specification) that promote accessibility. Work on these guidelines stopped in 2002; the guidelines are still a working draft.

[edit] Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA)

For more details on this topic, see WAI-ARIA.

WAI-ARIA is a set of documents that specify how to increase the accessibility of dynamic content and user interface components developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript and related technologies. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) does not provide features to create dynamic content or advanced user interface controls, but allows the inclusion of applets (Flash, Java) and client-side scripts (typically JavaScript). Web developers increasingly use client-side script to create user interface controls that cannot be created with HTML alone. They also use client-side script to update sections of a page without requesting a completely new page from a web server. These user interface controls and content updates are often not accessible to users with disabilities, especially screen reader users and users who cannot use a mouse or other pointing device.

WAI-ARIA describes how to add semantics and other metadata to HTML content in order to make user interface controls and dynamic content more accessible. For example, with WAI-ARIA it is possible to identify a list of links as a navigation menu and to state whether it is expanded or collapsed. Although originally developed to address accessibility issues in HTML, the use of WAI-ARIA is not limited to HTML: in principle, it can also be used in other markup languages such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). SVG 1.2 Tiny added support for WAI-ARIA in the 15 September 2008 working draft.[30]

The Web Accessibility Initiative has published an overview of WAI-ARIA[31] that introduces the subject and guides readers to the WAI-ARIA Suite documents:

  • Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Version 1.0. This is primarily aimed at developers of Web browsers assistive technologies and other user agents, developers of other technical specifications, and developers of accessibility evaluation tools.[20]
  • WAI-ARIA Primer[32]. This is a technical introduction to WAI-ARIA. It describes the problems WAI-ARIA tries to address, the underlying concepts, the technical approach and business reasons for adopting WAI-ARIA.
  • WAI-ARIA Best Practices[21]. This document describes best practices for delivering rich internet applications with WAI-ARIA: it discusses subjects such as general steps for building accessible widgets, keyboard navigation, relationships, form properties, drag-and-drop support, alerts and dialogs, reusable component libraries, and testing.
  • Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA Roadmap)[33]. Much of the content of this document has been moved into other documents.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Launches International Web Accessibility Initiative Press release, 7 April 1997.
  2. ^ How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute
  3. ^ Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility
  4. ^ Accessibility Features of CSS - W3C NOTE 4 August 1999
  5. ^ Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
  6. ^ Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility
  7. ^ Planning Web Accessibility Training
  8. ^ Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization: Overview
  9. ^ How People with Disabilities Use the Web
  10. ^ WAI-AGE Project (IST 035015)
  11. ^ Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review - W3C Working Draft 14 May 2008
  12. ^ Evaluation and Report Language 1.0 Schema
  13. ^ Evaluation and Report Language 1.0 Guide
  14. ^ HTTP Vocabulary in RDF
  15. ^ Representing Content in RDF
  16. ^ Pointer Methods in RDF
  17. ^ Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA: Alternatives to Visual Turing Tests on the Web - W3C Working Group Note 23 November 2005
  18. ^ Natural Language Usage -- Issues and Strategies for Universal Access to Information
  19. ^ Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA Roadmap) - W3C Working Draft 26 September 2006. This is the first public working draft; the most recent version can always be found at www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-roadmap/.
  20. ^ a b Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Version 1.0 - W3C Working Draft 6 August 2008
  21. ^ a b WAI-ARIA Best Practices - W3C Working Draft 4 February 2008
  22. ^ a b Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG) Charter
  23. ^ Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - W3C Note 6 November 2000
  24. ^ Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 - W3C Working Draft 22 November 2004
  25. ^ Response to Last Call Comments on ATAG 2.0, November 2004
  26. ^ Implementation Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 - W3C Working Draft 10 March 2008
  27. ^ Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 - W3C Note 17 December 2002
  28. ^ How to evaluate a user agent for conformance to UAAG 1.0
  29. ^ User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0: W3C Working Draft 12 March 2008.
  30. ^ See SVG 1.2 Tiny: role attribute and SVG 1.2 Tiny: Extensible metadata attributes.
  31. ^ WAI-ARIA Overview
  32. ^ WAI-ARIA Primer
  33. ^ Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA Roadmap)
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