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⟶ CISD and DCI ⟶ Literature ⟶ W3C UK News (1998-2006)
⟶ CISD and DCI ⟶ Literature ⟶ W3C UK News (1998-2006)
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Issue 18: June 1999

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

by Judy Brewer (jbrewer@w3.org)

On 5 May 1999, W3C announced the release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 specification as a W3C Recommendation: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT.

These establish stable principles for accessible design, such as the need to provide equivalent alternatives for auditory and visual information. These guidelines not only make pages more accessible to people with disabilities, but also have the side benefit of making pages more accessible to all users, or to users using voice or text browsers, or one of the emerging handheld or voice-based computers.

The specification contains fourteen guidelines which are general principles of accessible design. Each guideline has associated checkpoints explaining how these accessibility principles apply to specific features of sites. For example, providing alternative text for images ensures that information is available to a person who cannot see images. Providing captions for audio files makes information available to someone who cannot hear audio. The checkpoints are also available as a prioritized checklist which provides a handy tool for reviewing Web sites: www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/full-checklist.html.

The guidelines are designed to be forward-compatible with evolving Web technologies, yet enable sites to degrade gracefully when confronted with legacy browsers. Specifics on how to implement the checkpoints with the latest versions of HTML, CSS, or SMIL are described in a parallel Techniques document: www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/.

Each checkpoint is assigned one of three priority levels. Priority one is for checkpoints that a developer must satisfy, otherwise some groups of people will be unable to access information on a site; priority two a developer should satisfy or else it will be very difficult to access information; priority three a developer may satisfy otherwise some people will find it difficult to access information.

The specification defines three conformance levels. Conformance level Single-A includes priority one checkpoints; Double-A includes priority one and two; Triple-A includes priority one, two and three. For those whose pages follow the guidelines, logos are available which can be placed on their site to show conformance.

The guidelines address barriers in Web pages which people with physical, visual, hearing, and cognitive/neurological disabilities may encounter. Common accessibility problems include: images and imagemap hotspots without alternative text; misleading use of structural elements on pages; uncaptioned audio or undescribed video; lack of alternative information for users who cannot access frames or scripts; tables that are difficult to decipher when linearized; or sites with poor color contrast.

Accessible Web sites can be designed as creatively as inaccessible sites. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines address how to make Web features accessible, rather than recommending that sites be text-only. The goal is to ensure that all kinds of Web sites, including multimedia, work well for all users.

Many features of the guidelines actually improve usability of Web sites for non-disabled users, by ensuring that sites are more easily navigable, and that they can be accessed through a variety of different kinds of devices rather than only a traditional graphical desk-top browser. Translations of the guidelines into several languages is underway. Information on coordination of translations is available: www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TRANSLATIONS.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines address one aspect of the accessibility equation: how accessible the content on a site is. A second part of the equation is accessibility of browsers, which WAI is addressing through the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (currently a Working Draft). A third part of the equation is accessibility of the authoring tools used to develop sites, addressed through the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (also a Working Draft). It is likely that the release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines will increase the demand for authoring tools that support development of accessible content.

In addition to guidelines development, WAI also works internally within W3C on ensuring that the technologies of the Web, such as HTML, CSS, SMIL, XML, DOM, etc., support accessibility. WAI coordinates with other organizations to develop tools which can assist in evaluation, and retrofitting pages and providing proxy solutions to support accessibility. WAI has an active education and outreach effort, and some activity coordinating with research and development which can affect future Web access. Additional information is available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI.

New Members

The total number of members has risen to 335 with a breakdown:

Full Affiliate
Americas 44 153
Europe 31 63
Asia-Oceania 14 30

The new Members since April are:

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