Accessibility takes a step forward

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group yesterday announced the publication of WCAG 2.0 as a W3 Candidate Recommendation. WCAG 2.0 will eventually become the accepted accessibility standards and replace WCAG 1.0. This document contains full details on how to make websites accessible for all, albeit in very difficult technical jargon. If you are interested full details can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-WCAG20-20080430/.

photo credit: Yandle

A candidate recommendation means that developers and designers can now give the new proposals a try and then share their findings. These findings will then be taken into consideration before the final standards are laid down.

A handy quick reference to WCAG 2.0 can be found at http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/.

It is going to be interesting to see how things unfurl from here on in. We will all have to wait and see what the new standards will require of us.

I have made my feelings on standards known before, but allow me to repeat myself. Website accessibility and indeed usability is, in my opinion, nothing but old fashioned good manners. If one continually keeps thinking about others during the entire design phase of websites, you really cannot go wrong. If we all considered others, there might never have been a need for standards in the first place. The bottom line is, and will always be, that the Net belongs to ALL, none of us have more rights than anyone else.

How accessible is your site?

These posts might be related: