The
World Wide Web ConsortiumThe World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for...
(W3C)'s
Web Accessibility Initiative (
WAI) is an effort to improve the
accessibilityWeb accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality...
of the
World Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view Web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them using hyperlinks...
(WWW or Web) for people with
disabilitiesDisability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities."...
. People with disabilities may encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web.
Since people with disabilities often require non-standard devices and
browsersA user agent is the client application used with a particular network protocol; the phrase is most commonly used in reference to those which access the World Wide Web...
, making websites more
accessibleAccessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product is accessible by as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" the functionality, and possible benefit, of some system or entity...
also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources.
The W3C launched the Web Accessibility in 1997 with endorsement by The White House and W3C members.
It has several working groups and interest groups that work on guidelines, technical reports, educational materials and other documents that relate to the several different components of web accessibility.
These components include web content, web browsers and media players, authoring tools, and evaluation tools.
WAI develops guidelines and other technical reports through the same process as other parts of the W3C.
The
World Wide Web ConsortiumThe World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for...
(W3C)'s
Web Accessibility Initiative (
WAI) is an effort to improve the
accessibilityWeb accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality...
of the
World Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view Web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them using hyperlinks...
(WWW or Web) for people with
disabilitiesDisability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities."...
. People with disabilities may encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web.
Since people with disabilities often require non-standard devices and
browsersA user agent is the client application used with a particular network protocol; the phrase is most commonly used in reference to those which access the World Wide Web...
, making websites more
accessibleAccessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product is accessible by as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" the functionality, and possible benefit, of some system or entity...
also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources.
The W3C launched the Web Accessibility in 1997 with endorsement by The White House and W3C members.
It has several working groups and interest groups that work on guidelines, technical reports, educational materials and other documents that relate to the several different components of web accessibility.
These components include web content, web browsers and media players, authoring tools, and evaluation tools.
Organization
WAI develops guidelines and other technical reports through the same process as other parts of the W3C. Like other W3C initiatives, the WAI consists of several working groups and interest groups, each with its own focus. Only working groups can produce technical reports that become W3C recommendations. A working group can sometimes delegate specific work to a
task forceA task force is a temporary unit or formation established to work on a single defined task or activity. Originally introduced by the United States Navy, the term has now caught on for general usage and is a standard part of NATO terminology...
, which then presents its results back to the working group for approval. Interest groups may produce reports (for example, as W3C Notes), but not recommendations.
Each of these types of groups (working group, task force, interest group) can have one or more mailing lists. They meet through conference calls at regular intervals (typically every week or every other week) and sometimes use web-based surveys to collect input or comments from participants. They can also meet face to face (one to five times per year).
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG)
The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and supporting resources for tools that create web content, ranging from desktop
HTML editorsAn HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related...
to
content management systemsA content management system such as a document management system is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text.CMSs are frequently used for storing,...
.
The accessibility requirements apply to two types of things: the user interface on the one hand, and the content produced by the tool on the other.
The working group consists of representatives from organizations that produce authoring tools, researchers, and other accessibility experts.
The working group produced the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 in 2000 and is currently working on Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. It also published a document on Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility.
Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG)
The Education and Outreach Working Group develops materials for training and education on Web accessibility. This working group has produced documents on a wide range of subjects, including:
- Accessibility Features of CSS
- Curriculum for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
- Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility, a suite of documents about subjects such as conformance evaluation, evaluation approaches for specific contexts, involving users in web accessibility evaluation, and selecting web accessibility evaluation tools
- Planning Web Accessibility Training
- Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization
- How People with Disabilities Use the Web, a document that describes various fictitious characters with disabilities and how they use the Web in different scenarios
- many introduction pages on the WAI website.
Currently, the working group has a task force to support the work done in the WAI-AGE project. This project published a document that reviews literature about the needs of older users and compares these needs with those of people with disabilities as already addressed in WAI guidelines.
The Education and Outreach Working Group can also review working drafts produced by other WAI working groups.
Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group develops technical specifications that support the accessibility evaluation and repair of Web sites. It also maintains a database of tools for evaluating Web sites and for making them more accessible (“repair”, “retrofitting”).
The working group consists mainly of developers of such tools and researchers.
Current work focuses on
- Evaluation and Report Language (EARL): a language for expressing evaluation reports in a machine-readable way
- HTTP Vocabulary in RDF, which specifies how HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. Its use for retrieving inter-linked resources, called hypertext documents, led to the establishment of the World Wide Web in 1990 by English physicist Tim Berners-Lee...
requests and responses can be expressed in RDFThe Resource Description Framework is a family of World Wide Web Consortium specifications originally designed as a metadata data model...
- Representing Content in RDF, which specifies how content (retrieved from the Web or a local storage device) can be represented in RDF
- Pointer Methods in RDF, early work on how locations in and parts of online documents can be expressed in RDF.
Protocols & Formats Working Group (PFWG)
The Protocols & Formats Working Group reviews all W3C technologies for accessibility before they are published as a recommendation. It has also published a note on accessibility issues of
CAPTCHAA CAPTCHA or Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to ensure that the response is not generated by a computer. The process usually involves one computer asking a user to complete a simple test which the computer is able to generate and grade...
,
a paper on natural language usage for people with cognitive disabilities,
and initial work on accessibility requirements for XML-based markup languages (XML Accessibility Guidelines).
In 2006, the working group started development of a set of document and specifications for accessible
rich internet applicationsRich Internet applications are web applications that have most of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of standards based web browser plug-ins or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines...
:
WAI-ARIAWAI-ARIA is a set of documents published by the World Wide Web Consortium that specify how to increase the accessibility of dynamic content and user interface components developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript and related technologies...
.
Research and Development Interest Group (RDIG)
The goal of the Research and Development Interest Group is
- to increase the incorporation of accessibility considerations into research on Web technologies, and
- to identify projects researching Web accessibility and suggest research questions that may contribute to new projects.
This interest group has seen very little activity since 2004. Its current charter expired at the end of 2006.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG)
The User Agent Accessibility Guideline Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and other documents to promote the accessibility of
user agentsA user agent is the client application used with a particular network protocol; the phrase is most commonly used in reference to those which access the World Wide Web...
:
browsersA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
and plug-ins.
The working group consists mainly of organizations that develop user agents, researchers, and other accessibility experts.
The working group published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0) as a W3C Recommendation in 2002, and is currently working on the second version of this specification.
WAI Interest Group (WAI IG)
The WAI Interest Group is an open group with a mailing list to which anyone can subscribe. W3C staff post announcements of new WAI documents to this mailing list to invite reviews and comments. Members of the list also post announcements of relevant events and publications, and ask advice on issues related to web accessibility.
The language of the mailing list is English; there are no parallel mailing lists in other languages.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG)
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group produces guidelines, techniques and other supporting documents relating to the accessibility of Web content. Web content refers to any information you may find on a Web site: text, images, forms, sound, video, etcetera, regardless whether these were produced on the server side or on the client side (with a
client-side scripting languageClient-side scripting generally refers to the class of computer programs on the web that are executed client-side, by the user's web browser, instead of server-side...
such as
JavaScriptJavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as an integrated component of the web browser, allowing the...
). Thus, the guidelines also apply to
rich internet applicationsRich Internet applications are web applications that have most of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of standards based web browser plug-ins or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines...
.
The working group consists of representatives from industry, accessibility consultancies, universities, organizations that represent end users, and other accessibility experts.
The working group published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) as W3C Recommendation in 1999, followed by techniques documents in 2000.
In 2001, the working group started work on WCAG 2.0, which became a W3C Recommendation on 11 December 2008.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group is probably the most well-known working group in WAI; the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are often simply referred to as “the WAI guidelines,” even though WAI also produces other guidelines and specifications.
WAI Coordination Group
The WAI Coordination Group co-ordinates that activities of the WAI working groups (and interest groups). Its activities are not public.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (known as WCAG) were published as a W3C Recommendation on 5 May 1999. A supporting document, Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published as a W3C Note on 6 November 2000.
WCAG 1.0 is a set of guidelines for making web content more accessible to persons with disabilities. They also help make web content more usable for other devices, including mobile devices (PDAs and cell phones).
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are recognized as a de facto standard and have served as a basis for legislation and evaluation methodologies in many countries.
The WCAG working group published WCAG 2.0 as a Recommendation on 11 December 2008. WCAG 2.0 is based on very different requirements from WCAG 1.0:
- the guidelines needed to be technology-neutral, whereas WCAG 1.0 was strongly based on HTML and CSS;
- the guidelines needed to be worded as testable statements instead of instructions to authors.
The combination of more general applicability and higher precision proved very challenging.
Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG)
Developed by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the ATAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 3 February 3 2000.
The ATAG is a set of guidelines for developers of any kind of authoring tool for Web content: simple
HTML editorsAn HTML editor is a software application for creating web pages. Although the HTML markup of a web page can be written with any text editor, specialized HTML editors can offer convenience and added functionality. For example, many HTML editors work not only with HTML, but also with related...
, tools that export content for use on the Web (for example, word processors that can save as HTML), tools that produce multimedia,
content management systemsA content management system such as a document management system is a computer application used to manage work flow needed to collaboratively create, edit, review, index, search, publish and archive various kinds of digital media and electronic text.CMSs are frequently used for storing,...
, etcetera.
The goal is for developers to create tools that:
- are accessible to authors regardless of disability,
- produce accessible content by default,
- support and encourage authors to create accessible content.
The ATAG working group is currently working on a second version of the guidelines. A Last Call Working Draft was published in November 2004
but subsequent versions were published as normal working drafts.
Implementation Techniques for ATAG 2.0 are also available as a working draft.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG)
Developed by the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the UAAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 17 December 2002. The UAAG is a set of guidelines for user agent developers (such as
web browserA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s and media players) aimed at making the user agent accessible to users with disabilities. Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published as a W3C Note on the same day; it provides techniques for satisfying the checkpoints defined in UAAG 1.0.
Working group members also produced other supporting documents, including initial notes on How to evaluate a user agent for conformance to UAAG 1.0; this document was not formally approved by the working group.
No user agents have been reported as fully conforming to UAAG 1.0.
The working group is currently working on a new version of the guidelines. The first public draft of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was published on 12 March 2008.
XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG)
The XAG explains how to include features in XML applications (i.e. markup languages conforming to the XML specification) that promote accessibility. Work on these guidelines stopped in 2002; the guidelines are still a working draft.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA)
WAI-ARIA (
Web Accessibility InitiativeThe World Wide Web Consortium 's Web Accessibility Initiative is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities...
- Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a draft technical specification which is yet to become a
W3CThe World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for...
Recommended Web StandardA W3C Recommendation is the final stage of a ratification process of the World Wide Web Consortium working group concerning the standard. This designation signifies that a document has been subjected to a public and W3C-member organization's review. It aims to standardise the Web technology...
. It allows
web pageA webpage or web page is a document or resource of information that is suitable for the World Wide Web and can be accessed through a web browser and displayed on a computer screen....
s (or portions of pages) to declare themselves as
applicationsApplication software is a computer program that functions and is operated by means of a computer, with the purpose of supporting or improving the software user's work. In other words, it is the subclass of computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a...
rather than as
static documentsA static web page is a web page that always comprises the same information in response to all download requests from all users. Contrast with Dynamic web page....
, by adding role, property, and state information to dynamic web applications. ARIA is intended for use by developers of
web applicationIn software engineering, a web application or webapp is an application that is accessed via a web browser over a network such as the Internet or an intranet...
s,
web browserA web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s,
assistive technologiesAssistive technology is a generic term that includes assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities and includes the process used in selecting, locating, and using them....
, and accessibility evaluation tools.
See also
- Web accessibility
Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, all users can have equal access to information and functionality...
- Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
In 1998 the US Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities...
- a US government accessibility standard
External links