W3C Invites Developers to Implement WCAG 2.0

WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Advances to Candidate Recommendation

 

http://www.w3.org/ -- 30 April 2008 -- Today, W3C announces that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is ready for developers and designers to test in Web content and Web applications. Publication of WCAG 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation, a major step in the W3C standards process, signals broad consensus in the WCAG Working Group and among public reviewers on the technical content of the document.

"The community is eager for WCAG 2.0 to become a final W3C Recommendation, and this takes us one step closer," said Loretta Guarino Reid, Co-Chair of the WCAG Working Group. "Advancing WCAG 2.0 to Candidate Recommendation provides a stable document that developers can use for trial implementations in their Web sites."

WCAG 2.0 Meets Today's Needs

WCAG addresses accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities and many elderly users, and is one of three Web accessibility guidelines produced by W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). WCAG 2.0 provides a stable foundation for accessibility of Web content and Web applications, and supporting documents enable it to be used flexibly across the broad range of Web technologies and environments in today's Web. WCAG 2.0 is designed to be easier to use than WCAG 1.0, and is more precisely testable, using a combination of automated testing and human evaluation.

WCAG 2.0 Incorporates Extensive Community Feedback

"WCAG 2.0 has been developed with extensive community input," said Gregg Vanderheiden, Co-Chair of the WCAG Working Group, and Director of the Trace R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We've worked very hard, including publishing twelve Working Drafts and addressing more than 3000 comments, in order to ensure that WCAG 2.0 meets the need for an updated international standard with which national and local Web accessibility guidelines can harmonize."

WCAG Working Group Seeks Diverse Implementations of WCAG 2.0

The Working Group seeks feedback from implemention experience of WCAG 2.0 in diverse types of Web sites and Web applications by 30 June 2008. A comprehensive suite of supporting documents is available to help implementors, and includes How to Meet WCAG 2.0, which allows developers and designers to build a customized view of WCAG 2.0 requirements; Understanding WCAG 2.0; Techniques for WCAG 2.0; an Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents; a WCAG 2.0 FAQ; and Comparison between WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 to support transitions to WCAG 2.0.

About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL) in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more information see http://www.w3.org/

About the Web Accessibility Initiative [WAI]

W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) works with organizations around the world, pursuing Web accessibility by ensuring that core technologies of the Web support accessibility; developing guidelines for Web content, user agents, and authoring tools; facilitating development of evaluation and repair tools for accessibility; conducting education and outreach; and coordinating with research and development that can affect future accessibility of the Web. WAI is supported in part by the U.S. Department of Education; European Commission's Information Society Technologies Programme; IBM; Microsoft Corporation; SAP; and Wells Farg

 

Contact Americas, Australia --

Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447 or +1.617.253.2613

Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --

Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33 4 92 38 75 94 or +33 6 76 86 33 41

Contact Asia --

Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170