Conformance to WAI Accessibility Guidelines

Status of this document

This document is a draft of a unified WAI conformance statement for review by the W3C Membership and other interested parties.

1. Introduction

This document explains how to claim conformance to these guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C):

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG): These guidelines explain how to make Web content accessible to people with disabilities.
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (ATAG): This specification provides guidelines for Web authoring tool developers. Its purpose is two-fold: to assist developers in designing authoring tools that generate accessible Web content and to assist developers in creating an accessible authoring interface.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG): This document provides guidelines to user agent developers for making their products accessible to people with disabilities. User agents include graphical desktop browsers, multimedia players, plug-ins, voice browsers, and other assistive technologies used to access Web content. Developers must ensure that user agent functionalities are accessible to users with disabilities and that user agents communicate with other user agents to provide additional functionalities necessary for full access to the Web.

Each of the guidelines allows three types of claim:

Level A Conformance: all priority 1 checkpoints satisfied,
Level Double-A Conformance: all priority 1 and priority 2 checkpoints satisfied,
Level Triple-A Conformance: all checkpoints satisfied;

2. Well-formed claims

A claim must include the following information:

The title and version of the guidelines that is the object of the claim.
The URI of the guidelines.
The conformance level satisfied.
The date of the claim.
The checkpoints of the chosen conformance level considered not applicable. W3C encourages claimants to use checklist provided with each guidelines document for this purpose.
The scope of the claim.

Please refer to the relevant guidelines document for sample claims to that document.

Claim details may be provided in text or metadata markup (e.g., using RDF and an RDF schema designed for WAI conformance claims). If the details are provided in a markup language, they must be accessible according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

A sample RDF schema in development is available at the W3C Website.

3. Location of a claim

Anyone may make a conformance claim (e.g., vendors about their own products, third parties about those products, content providers about their own Web sites, journalists about Web sites of others, etc.). A claim may be published anywhere (e.g., on the Web or in product documentation). The claim must be accessible according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

4. Validity of a claim

Claimants are solely responsible for their claims and the use of the conformance icons. If the subject of the claim (e.g., a Web page or piece of software) changes after the date of the claim, the claimant is responsible for updating the claim.

Claimants (or relevant assuring parties) are responsible for the validity of a claim. As of 1 February 2000, W3C does not act as an assuring party, but it may do so in the future, or establish recommendations for assuring parties.

Claimants are expected modify or retract a claim if it may be demonstrated that the claim is flawed or incomplete. Claimants are encouraged to conform to the most recent guidelines available.

Please note that it is not currently possible to validate claims completely automatically.

5. Conformance Icons

"Conformance Icons" may be used by claimants on Web sites, product packaging, documentation, etc. as part of claiming conformance.

5.1 How to use the icons

For any of the guidelines documents, a conformance icon (chosen according to the appropriate conformance level) must link to the W3C explanation of the icon. The appearance of a conformance icon does not imply that W3C has reviewed or validated the claim. An icon must be accompanied by a well-formed claim. Here is an example of using the WCAG Level Double-A icon and a link to a well-formed claim:

<A href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AA-Conformance"
      title="Explanation of Level Double-A Conformance">
  <IMG height="32" width="88" 
          src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1AA"
          alt="Level Double-A conformance icon, 
          W3C-WAI Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"></A>
  | <A href="URI-to-well-formed-claim">About conformance</A>

5.2 The Web Content Accessibility icons

The following sections explain how to claim conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 in HTML 4.

WCAG Level A Conformance

Put the following markup in your page for the level A icon:

<A href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1A-Conformance"
      title="Explanation of Level A Conformance">
  <IMG height="32" width="88" 
          src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1A"
          alt="Level A conformance icon, 
          W3C-WAI Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"></A>

WCAG Level Double-A Conformance

Put the following markup in your page for the level Double A icon:

<A href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AA-Conformance"
      title="Explanation of Level Double-A Conformance">
  <IMG height="32" width="88" 
          src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1AA"
          alt="Level Double-A conformance icon, 
          W3C-WAI Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"></A>

WCAG Level Triple-A Conformance

Put the following markup in your page for the level Triple A icon:

<A href="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance"
      title="Explanation of Level Triple-A Conformance">
  <IMG height="32" width="88" 
          src="http://www.w3.org/WAI/wcag1AAA"
          alt="Level Triple-A conformance icon, 
          W3C-WAI Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0"></A>

Ensure that the technology of the Web supports accessibility
Develop accessibility guidelines
Develop tools to facilitate evaluation and repair of Web sites
Conduct education and outreach
Coordinate with research and development

WAI's International Program Office enables partnering of industry, disability organizations, accessibility research organizations, and governments interested in creating an accessible Web.

Ian Jacobs, wai@w3.org
Last modified: $Date: 2000/01/25 15:10:17 $