In 1999, the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a project by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 1.0. In recent years, these have been widely accepted as the definitive guidelines on how to create accessible websites. However, different countries have different legislations and no single standard has been successfully adopted worldwide yet.
In 2008, the WAI released the WCAG 2.0 as a recommendation. WCAG 2.0 guidelines intend to be up to date and more technology neutral. These guidelines are twelve in number and based on four principles. They are classified into three priority levels: Must, Should, May. Any website claiming to be W3C compliant needs to be certified to the A ("Must") level at a minimum, others can claim higher degrees or grades of compliance by certifying to AA ("Should") and AAA ("May") levels. Moreover, the entire website and all its constituent webpages must be compliant in their entirety, not just in part.
In simple English, the four basic principles are as follows:
Principle 1: Perception
• All non-text content (like images, flash, applets, decoration, captcha etc.) must be available in text alternatives. This can be done by providing alternative text-only pages or inserting ALT tags for images etc.
• All time-based media (like audio and video) must be available with alternatives, usually text.
• Content must be presented in alternative ways (like menus, tables, navigation etc.) without losing its meaning or structure.
• Content must be easy to read (like high contrast foreground and background, large text etc.)
Principle 2: Operation
• All functionality must be available by alternative input devices (like keyboard, mouse etc.)
• Movement (like auto-updates, scrolling, page refreshes etc.) should be minimised so that adequate time is allowed for users to read the content.
• Flashing of the screen should be avoided.
• Navigation must be clear. E.g. blocks of repeated text should have internal anchors for bypassing, page titles, section headings, form fields order, purpose of hyperlinks etc. should all be clear.
Principle 3: Understanding
• Content should be in simple comprehensible language.
• The website should behave predictably. No need to re-design the way the Web works or feels. It should be comfortable, consistent and familiar.
• Data entry should have help available (like explanatory notes, suggestion text, meaningful error messages etc.) to assist users in entering information easily and intuitively. If this is not possible, then data submission should be reversible.
Principle 4: Robustness
• Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies (like screen readers etc.)
Use these principles--and common sense!--in making your website more easily available to everyone.
In 2008, the WAI released the WCAG 2.0 as a recommendation. WCAG 2.0 guidelines intend to be up to date and more technology neutral. These guidelines are twelve in number and based on four principles. They are classified into three priority levels: Must, Should, May. Any website claiming to be W3C compliant needs to be certified to the A ("Must") level at a minimum, others can claim higher degrees or grades of compliance by certifying to AA ("Should") and AAA ("May") levels. Moreover, the entire website and all its constituent webpages must be compliant in their entirety, not just in part.
In simple English, the four basic principles are as follows:
Principle 1: Perception
• All non-text content (like images, flash, applets, decoration, captcha etc.) must be available in text alternatives. This can be done by providing alternative text-only pages or inserting ALT tags for images etc.
• All time-based media (like audio and video) must be available with alternatives, usually text.
• Content must be presented in alternative ways (like menus, tables, navigation etc.) without losing its meaning or structure.
• Content must be easy to read (like high contrast foreground and background, large text etc.)
Principle 2: Operation
• All functionality must be available by alternative input devices (like keyboard, mouse etc.)
• Movement (like auto-updates, scrolling, page refreshes etc.) should be minimised so that adequate time is allowed for users to read the content.
• Flashing of the screen should be avoided.
• Navigation must be clear. E.g. blocks of repeated text should have internal anchors for bypassing, page titles, section headings, form fields order, purpose of hyperlinks etc. should all be clear.
Principle 3: Understanding
• Content should be in simple comprehensible language.
• The website should behave predictably. No need to re-design the way the Web works or feels. It should be comfortable, consistent and familiar.
• Data entry should have help available (like explanatory notes, suggestion text, meaningful error messages etc.) to assist users in entering information easily and intuitively. If this is not possible, then data submission should be reversible.
Principle 4: Robustness
• Content must be robust enough to be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies (like screen readers etc.)
Use these principles--and common sense!--in making your website more easily available to everyone.
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