Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are part of a series of Web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative. They consist of a set of guidelines on making content accessible, primarily for disabled users, but also for all user agents, including highly limited devices, such as mobile phones.

Contents

[edit] Priority levels

The guidelines have three priority levels:

  • Priority 1: Web developers must satisfy these requirements, otherwise it will be impossible for one or more groups to access the Web content. Conformance to this level is described as "A".
  • Priority 2: Web developers should satisfy these requirements, otherwise some groups will find it difficult to access the Web content. Conformance to this level is described as "AA" or "double A".
  • Priority 3: Web developers may satisfy these requirements, in order to make it easier for some groups to access the Web content. Conformance to this level is described as "AAA" or "triple A".

[edit] WCAG 1.0

The WCAG 1.0 were published and became a W3C recommendation on May 5, 1999.

[edit] WCAG 2.0

The first working draft of what will become the WCAG 2.0 W3C Recommendation was published on January 25, 2001, the latest version on 30 April 2008. The five year process encouraged participation in editing (and responding to the hundreds of comments) by the Working Group, with diversity assured by inclusion of accessibility experts and members of the disability community.

There has been some criticism[1][2] depicting WCAG 2.0 as obscure, vague, and perhaps even a backwards step for Web accessibility, as well as criticism of the criticism.[3]

[edit] Published errata

In February 2008, the WCAG Samurai, an independent group of developers, published a set of errata (error corrections) for optional use alongside WCAG 1.0.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "To Hell with WCAG 2", A List Apart, May 23, 2006. 
  2. ^ "Testability Costs Too Much", A List Apart, June 26, 2006. 
  3. ^ "To Hell with Joe Clark", Learning the World, August 31, 2006. 

[edit] External links


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