Web Access Centre Blog

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) has just published some great resources on the cross overs between the mobile web and accessibility. The good news is that reading through these you’ll see how designing with accessibility in mind makes your site work much better on mobile devices and that if you follow mobile web best practices you will already be enhancing the web accessibility of your site. Yet another nugget to add to the business case for web accessibility or mobile web best practices. This really does show how standards are mutually supportive and work together killing two birds with one stone:

• Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices
• Relationship Between Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines First Public Working Draft

It doesn’t stop there however. There is also a strong cross over between mobile web best practices, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and internationalisation. Watch this space as I’ll be publishing an article soon that looks at the cross overs between all three.

Finally a nod in the direction of Alan Chuter who worked so hard on getting these drafts together.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has been hard at work over the last few months to review comments submitted in response to thier previous Last Call. Below are the details of the next Last Call, how you can provide feedback and information about other documents that have also been updated:

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group invites you to review the second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft published on 11 December 2007. WCAG 2.0 explains how to make Web sites, applications, and other content accessible to people with disabilities. Please submit any comments on the second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft by 1 February 2008.

This second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft is provided for public review of the document now that it has all resolutions from previous comments incorporated. The WCAG Working Group hopes that it has resolved all substantive issues with this draft, and looks forward to progressing to the next stages in completing WCAG 2.0. The next stages are described in How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process.

The different WCAG 2.0 documents that the WCAG Working Group updated are introduced in Overview of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Documents.

A key tool for reviewing and working with WCAG 2.0 documents is WCAG 2.0 Quick Reference.

For a summary of issues, revisions, and rationales on WCAG 2.0 Working Drafts - such as coverage of cognitive disabilities and testability - see Issues and Changes to WCAG 2.0.

Note that the navigation between the documents is changed in these drafts. Now each topic in “Understanding WCAG 2.0″ and “Techniques for WCAG 2.0″ is in a separate small Web page.

When you review the updated documents, if there are any significant additional issues that you feel could present a barrier to adoption and implementation of WCAG 2.0, please submit comments by Friday 1 February 2008. Please use the comment form or the email address provided in Instructions for Commenting on WCAG 2.0 Documents.

Comments in support of progressing WCAG 2.0 to the next stages are also welcome.

WCAG 2.0 is part of a series of accessibility guidelines/standards developed by WAI, which are listed in WAI Guidelines and Techniques.

The Web Accessibility Initiative have just published a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 presentation materials.

The presentation “slides” and extensive notes are designed for presenters to use for their own presentations and is also available for anyone who wants to learn about WCAG 2.0. Topics covered are:

• the benefits of WCAG 2.0
• shortcuts for using WCAG 2.0
• how it differs from WCAG 1.0
• related topics

The About WCAG 2.0 presentation is available in “Presentation format” (compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint, Open Office Impress, and some other presentation software) or “Web format” (HTML/CSS) the presentation, notes and instructions can be downloaded from the WAI site.

In June 5th of this year Shawn Henry from the World Wide Web (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) presented on “What’s new, WCAG 2.0, and current issues” hosted by RNIB in London. Shawn gave a great overview of what is happening with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2 (WCAG 2.0) as well as spent some time answering some really interesting questions from the audience.

It’s taken a bit of time to get the transcript finalised (see an earlier post on the trials and tribulations of podcast transcription) but we’re there now. A huge thank you to Stuart Colville of Muffin Research who helped organise the even and the University of Westminster where it was held.

What follows is a transcript of the talk.

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Latest news from the Web Accessibility Initiative about progress of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0:

Here is Here is a brief update on WCAG 2.0 work to let you know how things are coming along since the May 2007 Working Draft release.

The WCAG Working Group received many constructive comments on the May 2007 WCAG 2.0 Working Draft. They separated the comments into about 450 issues, ranging from minor edits to technical issues. In the first two weeks of July, the Working Group had eight half-day worksessions where they addressed about 150 of those issues and started work on another 100. It will likely take 3 to 4 months to address all of the issues and prepare the next draft.

The Working Group will respond to each comment. Once the comments have been addressed, the Working Group plans to publish a second WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft to provide for review of the completed edits before moving on to the next stages. The next stages are described in How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process.

Additional information and links are available in the WCAG 2 FAQ under:
- 17 May 2007 Working Drafts
- Update July 2007

Questions such as “What are the different WCAG 2.0 documents?”, “When will WCAG 2.0 be done?” and “How is WCAG 2.0 different from WCAG 1.0?” are also answered in the WCAG 2 FAQ

The latest news from the Web Accessibility Website is that as part of the Mitsue-Links “Meet the Professionals” video series, Shawn Henry of W3C WAI talks with Kazuhito Kidachi about shared responsibilities between web site developers, browsers, and assistive technologies; the importance of different types of authoring tools supporting accessibility; how WCAG 2.0 and WAI-ARIA address the more difficult aspects of Web accessibility; WAI’s outreach resources; and what led Shawn to accessibility years ago.

See video with English audio and Japanese subtitles, and text transcripts.

While in London at the beginning of June Shawn Henry gave a number of presentations. She kicked off the week at an event we hosted talking about “What’s new, WCAG 2.0 and current issues”, then presented at @Media and wrapped up the week speaking at Yahoo!.

Shawn’s presentation at Yahoo! “Web Accessibility Guidelines update” is available on video and well worth a watch if you were unable to catch her at any of the events. And if you haven’t already seen them Yahoo! have also been putting online some great video’s of people using various access technologies.

We’ll be posting a transcript of the presentation Shawn gave with RNIB soon.

We’re really looking forward to seeing so many of you for Shawn Henry’s presentation on “What’s new, WCAG 2.0, and current issues” on Tuesday 5th June. If you haven’t already booked a place then book a place online now as they’re going fast.

Shawn will also be selling copies of her book Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design for £22. This is a great book that looks at usability, accessibility and user testing with people with disabilities and comes highly recommended. We can’t process electronic payments so please bring either cash or cheque if you would like a copy.

We’ll also be meeting up at the Bricklayers Arms in Greese Street and all are welcome. If you can’t make it then we hope to have a podcast of the session as well as a write up of the evening posted here, in the Web Access Centre, after the event.

If you have any questions for us or a question you’d like to submit to Shawn ahead of time then email us at wac@rnib.org.uk

Date:Tuesday June 5th
Time: 6.45 so we can start at 7pm
Venue: Department of Electronics, Communications and Software Engineering, Westminster University, New Cavendish Street campus
Getting there: The campus is a short walk from Goodge Street tube - map of the venue

The RNIB Web Access Team will be host to Shawn Henry, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), and author of Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design who will be presenting on “What’s New, WCAG 2.0, and Current Issues”.

In this session Shawn will highlight recent developments in accessibility guidelines for Web sites, Web applications, evaluation tools, authoring tools, and browsers. Learn how these impact your Web projects now and how they provide flexibility for the future.

Shawn will answer your questions about Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG), User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG), and the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (WAI-ARIA). She’ll talk about how WAI develops accessibility guidelines through the W3C process, upcoming milestones for 2.0 versions, and how you can contribute to W3C’s work.

She’ll also touch on the relationship between accessibility and usability, the role of accessibility standards, and designing positive user experiences for people with disabilities.

Date:Tuesday June 5th
Time: 6.45 so we can start at 7pm
Venue: Department of Electronics, Communications and Software Engineering, Westminster University, New Cavendish Street campus
Getting there: The campus is a short walk from Goodge Street tube - map of the venue

The event is free but places limited so don’t miss out and sign up online.

If you have any questions ahead of time then email us at wac@rnib.org.uk

A big thank you to Stuart Colville and the University of Westminster for helping out and hosting the event.

Much has been said about the WCAG 2.0 Guidelines and the large amount of information bundled with it, with many people asking, “where do I start?”. When the draft WCAG 2.0 Guidelines were published for comment last year by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) this seemed to be a big talking point and one that got me thinking: what is the best way to be working with WCAG 2.0 and where do you start?

Now that a new a call for review has been announced for the updated WCAG 2.0 Working Draft I thought what better time than now to share a few thoughts on the second version of the guidelines.

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