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W3C Web Accessibility Standards 2.0
WildFire42 writes "The W3C has released their W3C WCAG 2.0 Standards (that's World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) for a request for comments before it becomes a standard. I've discovered quite a variety of geeks here that may access web content in a variety of methods, from screen readers, to Braille displays, to open captioning on streamed videos, etc. Web accessibility is still in its infancy (relatively), but is becoming a concern for more people every day. Once the WCAG 2.0 becomes a recognized standard (probably sometime in 2004), it will most likely be a concern for web developers, but the W3C still wants input from the public, to get a feel of the kinds of disabilities that have not received enough focus in the 1.0 standards. More information on the Interest Group is at the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative page. Your input and insight is needed!"
should first make sure all browsers comply to the standards before rolling out new ones.
how about you using a browser that doesn't allow popups (opera, all mozilla derivates, konqueror, all text browsers and dillo are just a few that come to mind), or if you really need to stick to the current browser, why not just use a proxy that blocks them (squid, junkbusters, proximitron, tinyproxy,... the list goes on) ?
Removal of pop-ups is a recommendation of the current w3c accessability standards. Switching window focus without letting the user know that it is going to happen can confuse accessibility programs and users. I believe pop-unders are just a hack that switches focus back, so they are also not recommended.
Very few web sites that I've seen care about accessibility standards. Very few web devs, it seems, even care about W3C standards, because they develop for browsers (i.e. IE) rather than for the web (i.e. W3C standards). Check a number of pages with Watchfire Bobby and you'll see. Even slashdot has quite a few "violations" of the WCAG 1.0 standard.
Well, if you're talking about sites that provide govenment services then yes, accessability standards should be maintained. Just like if you go to a courthouse, there needs to be a ramp there for wheelchairs. If your talking about rubmyhotbutt.com, though, then I agree with you; this should not be compulsory.
Though this was labeled as troll, and I can see why, I can also see the point in it. Some may not, so I will clarify. Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser is horrid about complying to W3C standards, and even creates its own "standards" that some people are more likely to comply to. Maybe this wouldn't be labeled troll if the statement was more like, "This is a great development for the W3C, but seems that, unfortunately, it's not going to do much good. Microsoft has been making web standards useless ever since they 'took control' of the 'browser market,' and they don't seem to care about accessable web pages (WCAG 1.0, US section 508). I did check the document source for an accessable alternative version as the W3C standards would accept instead of the main version being accessable, but they have no alternative versions, even for mobile devices or anything."
When no one follows it.
Or in some cases, when a standard is so ill-defined as to allow for multiple incompatible interpretations, making it impossible to figure out if you've followed it.
Historically, browsers have consistantly been incompatible, plug-ins have been required to accomplish those things the browsers didn't accomplish, and the goal of content over form has been lost since the <b> tag stuck it's elbow in the <em> tag''s face.
Web site developers, meanwhile, are not only ignorant of the standards, but would be actively encouraged to ignore them by their client even if they knew. The people who build these sites do not care about accessability any more than spammers really care about those people who get mad at the e-mails.
At this point, testing with normal browsers has become impossible, since there are multiple versions of IE, both Mac and PC, on the streets, all of them rendering CSS differently, Mozilla has split yet again, Safari is trying to gain market share, and Opera is still causing web developers to pull their hair out.
And now you want an accessability standard?
I've been a beta tester. I've been a web designer. And I've had an internet account for a decade now. The industry is incapable of following the standards it currently has. It doesn't need new ones. It sure as heck isn't going to follow them. If someone needs an accessabilty guideline, they can use Section 508 for now. It'll do the job until the industry can get it's act together.
No Zen is good zen
I think you are missing the point that the web so easily could be an ideal medium for non-visual information.
For example, if you compare the technology required to read a paper book out loud to that required to read an electronic text file out aloud, I'm sure you will see that the latter is a far easier task. There's no reason to make it difficult, but designers do, just because they think it is more important to have a heading in their own choice of font (presented as a bitmap) than for a minority to be able to read it.
You might also like to bear in mind that local government in the UK has a duty to make information available in a form that people can understand. That's why most leaflets tell you where to get hold of a large-print version, or in audio tape form. (Presumably your neighbour tells you this from the original leaflet if you can't read it yourself!)
So I ask again: The web is ideally suited to avoid the effort required to make paper documents universally accessible. Why make it difficult?
Accessibility benefits everyone, not just the disabled. I recall back when wheelchair accesibility was first made a requirement for public places. I remember thinking to myself, "we have to spend all this money just for a few cripples?" Since then, I've raised a few children who I pushed around in strollers, and I was mighty glad for simple accessibility features such as sloping curb cuts in sidewalks.
The w3c guidelines are mostly common-sense hints about what not to do. Many barriers to access are unintentional; the w3c is doing web developers a service by pointing them out.
The Web is not a visual medium. Yes, it contains a lot of visual content, but there's also plenty of text content that can be presented just fine in a non-visual manner.
As a Web author, your role is to describe the structure of the content. If you use proper markup, such as H1 for headings and P for paragraphs, then browsers can present your content in an appropriate manner whether it be visual or non-visual.
The Web still consists mostly of text content, and there's nothing visual about that. (Yes, I know about porn, but there's still plenty of text content even there.)
aw man that is one of the dullest articles ive ever read. And judging by the number of comments to this thread im not the only one.
The first 10 pages of the article are a desciption about the article. it reminds me of them self absorbed bloggers whos content pages are filled to the brim on their website about what changes theyve made to their website.
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
My theory is that there's three important dimensions in labelling a link: first the topic, then the resource-type (etext, image, etc), and last the rating (good or bad).
Topic usually doesn't change within a sentence, so I like to add a 'text button' at the end that augments the topic-info with the resource-type. [examples]
I usually skip the rating unless it's especialy good or bad.
If you're referring to an organisation or source of information, it's very useful only helpful to put it there.
The problem is, you can't specify the resource type-- if it's a book-title, are you linking a full etext, or a review, or the Amazon page? For an organisation, you can guess it will be their official website, but this is not reliable. (I make an exception when the sentence mentions the resource type, like "There's a great weblog I stumbled upon...")
If you find any inline links to be too intrusive, just set your user agent
They reduce readability for everyone, even if the color is tweaked, so the author should look for a better way....imho.
>Once the WCAG 2.0 becomes a recognized standard (probably sometime in 2004), it will most likely be a concern for web developers
Why do you say that?
The HTML standard has been out for years, and it isn't a concern for the average web developer. Why should they start being concerned about accessibility guidelines, when right now they write pages that can only be viewed in Internet Explorer, or only after installing some sort of trojan/spyware on your machine?
Remember when you could type in an address and not see 'Directory Listing Denied'?
There are many countries in which accessibility is a legal requirement for lots of organisations. For more information on these, please see WAI Policy.
I believe the most common point of view is that people who must cater to the needs of disabled people in the physical world must also do so on the WWW.
For instance, McDonald's are legally obliged to provide bathrooms that are specially equipped for people with mobility problems, at least in the UK. However private homes aren't required to provide them. It seems reasonable to draw the line at the same place on the web - so individuals would not be required to follow WCAG (or similar), yet service providers would.
I was thinking about it, and one comment I would have is the [comments] don't actually say what they're linking too, only what kind of content there is. Links should, and I know I don't always obey this but I will eventually, actually say what they are. Then you begin to get long things like [(dummy) etext on rabid donkeys] and by that stage, you've lost the advantage of it, and might just as well have said that you should read the (dummy) re-hashed etext on rabid donkeys, and any advantage you might still have had you've totally lost, because that's what you would've (should've) said in the first place.
Look out!
Contrary to the parent, Bobby is the least useful accessibility report tool in town.
:)
I work in an office that does accessibility reviews, and we have never used Bobby. It was bought out by a for-profit (after belonging to a NFP group for quite some time) and has more or less stagnated.
Bobby will give you an enormous list of things to fix, but most of what it says can be ignored and it ignores most of what needs to be said.
At the moment, our office doesn't recommend any automated accessibility checker. LIFT is better than Bobby, but there is no substitute for actually knowing the guidelines (which is not hard -- get the checklist instead of the W3C novella format).
Or hire us to come teach you.
That's not true at all.
Accessible websites don't have to be ugly. What makes you think that they do?
Any site by an organization or company that serves the general public should comply. It's a no-brainer ... why would you deliberately create websites that only some of the visitors can use? How many potential customers do you want to turn away at the door, after spending a lot of effort to get them to the site with search engines and ads ... it might work for a trendy nightclub, but it's a suicidal tactic for a web-based business.
I'f Timmy's Terrific Toe Jam Sculpture site doesn't want to comply, that's Timmy's right. However, Timmy will probably not get much traffic.