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At the present time no-one seems to know exactly which set of website accessibility standards developers should follow.

On the one hand we have the WCAG 1.0 Standards. These were published in 1999 and with all the changes in technologies since that time, these standards are not really relevant anymore.

To overcome this problem work was started on a new set of standards referred to as the WCAG 2.0 Standards. On 30 April 2008 the WCAG 2.0 Standards were published as a W3 Candidate Recommendation. This means these new set of standards are still very much in the development stage. Even though nothing has really been finalized with regards to this set of standards there has already been a lot of opposition to them. Many feel that the proposed standards are not really relevant neither nor are all of them very easy to implement. Some even feel that some of the proposed standards as they are at present are impossible to implement.

While work was continuing on the WCAG 2.0 Standards an independent group was working on a revised version of the WCAG 1.0 Standards. On 28 February 2008 the WCAG Samurai Errata was published. This is a revised version of WCAG 1.0 and it totally ignores WCAG 2.0 in whatever state it is currently in.

If one stops to think about it, we currently have a set of standards that is no longer relevant. We have another set of standards that has not been finalized yet and somewhere in the middle we have a revised version of the first set of standards. To my mind this means that if a developer is going to follow any accessibility standards it will have to be the mentioned WCAG Samurai Errata standards.

I have had a look at the standards in the Errata and summarized what I consider to be the more interesting parts of it in the form of 20 questions. If you want to follow these standards you simply have to answer all these questions for yourself. If you have to answer ‘yes’ to any of the questions it means your site is not accessible at present.

Please note that the questions I have included are by no means an exhaustive list of all the standards that need to be implemented. Some of the standards included here have changed substantially from the original standards, some have just been described more clearly and others were never in the original standards to start off with.

I would suggest that you have a look at the WCAG Samurai Errata for WCAG 1.0 for full details.

Now just what are the questions?

1. My site plays sounds automatically when it is loaded.
2. I do not have transcriptions for my podcasts.
3. My site automatically plays videos when it is loaded.
4. The videos I use on my site have no captioning included.
5. I use color alone to indicate certain elements on my pages.
6. Green and red are the so-called confusable colors. I put these confusable colors on top of one another on my site (e.g. red text on a green background).
7. My site does not have valid (X)HTML or CSS.
8. I use frames on my pages.
9. I use blockquotes to indent my paragraphs.
10. I do not identify the primary language used on my pages.
11. I use tables for layout purposes.
12. I do not allow my visitors to stop or pause the moving content I have on my pages.
13. I use marquees on my site.
14. I use server-side image maps.
15. I set the tabindex for the links on my pages.
16. I set accesskeys on my pages.
17. I make use of pop-ups on my pages.
18. I open links in new windows without warning the user.
19. I use PDF documents without tagging them.
20. My site is complicated and difficult to navigate but I do not have a sitemap or a table of contents.

I do hope that if you had to answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions you will consider rectifying the situation. If you did not have to answer ‘yes’ to any of these you are most definitely on your way to an accessible site.

In my next article I will be having a look at those things that used to break the accessibility standards but are now permitted in the Errata.

These posts might be related:

1. Has the Errata actually changed anything?
2. Accessibility standards have become inaccessible
3. Just what are the accessibility standards?
4. Accessibility takes a step forward
5. Are the accessibility standards cast in stone?