Bringing Accessibility to Today's Web

Michael Cooper, cooper@w3.org

Introduction: Michael Cooper

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Staff contact to:
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
- Protocols and Formats Working Group

The "Modern Web"

Dynamic content
Complex content
More "desktop-like"
Hacking technologies
New technologies
Mashups

Dynamic content
- Changes without page refresh (Example: scoreboard)
- Varying levels of priority (Example: chat application)
Complex content
- not easily reducable to text, so text alternatives not an ideal access solution
- animations, videos, interactive diagrams
Important new technologies: Flash, Silverlight
Repurposing of semantics: DHTML, Ajax, Microformats

Emerging accessibility issues

Updating content
Unreliable semantics
Keyboard focus
Intrinsically complex content
Aggregated content

Updating content
- On one hand, risk of badly managed change of context
- On other hand, risk of user missing update
- Mechanism for notifying user usefully of change
Meaning of semantic elements changed, or semantic-less elements used
- Web pages constructed mostly of div and span and styled with CSS & script
- Taking over a defined semantic for another purpose, as in some microformats, using links just to provide focus regions
HTML provides limited keyboard focus support
Content intrinsically more complex, harder for assistive technologies to render meaningfully
Aggregated content - mean a single author can't control accessibility

Accessibility support of technologies

Native accessibility support essential
Early accessibility review
Define common accessibility approach
Accessibility solutions implemented on piecemeal
Guidance to technology developers

Address the challenges

Leverage existing platform accessibility APIs
Provide semantics for the types of content being used today
Provide understandable information about the challenges faced by people with disabilities
Support accessibility authoring with clear techniques
Authoring tool, evaluation tool, and user agent impacts

Standards to support Web applications

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA)

WCAG 2.0

Testable requirements
Technology independent
Future proofed
Clear conformance requirements

Guidelines are agnostic as to whether it is human testable or machine testable. Some things can only be tested by humans (with current technology); some things should be tested by machine to be practical.

Status of WCAG 2.0

Public Working Drafts
Last Call Working Draft
Candidate Recommendation
- Implementations
Proposed Recommendation
W3C Recommendation = Web Standard

Currently in Candidate Recommendation stage
Seeking implementations
Must evaluate implementations
Test procedures
At risk success criteria
Next stages

Must actively implement each SC and each conformance level twice
Some success criteria have been labelled as "at risk", meaning we're not sure if we will be able to demonstrate implementation. Such SC could be removed.
We hope to have final report by 31 August 2008, after which we can progress to the next stages: Proposed Recommendation, and Recommendation. Once we reach Recommendation, it's an official specification of W3C and can replace WCAG 1.0.

WCAG 2 materials

Figure 1: Relationship of the WCAG documents

Explain entry points from perspective of roles:
- Beginners: Understanding Tool developers: techniques
- Web developers: How to meet
- Policy maker, management: guidelines

Key differences from WCAG 1.0

Comparison of requirements

Script allowed (when accessibility supported)
Fallbacks an option but not required
Direct access
Applicability across languages
"Until user agents..."

Fallbacks are an option but are not required when direct accessibility can provided; agnostic to the situations this applies
Good ol' Checkpoint 6.1 lacks a direct parallel
Requires that role, state, value be programmatically determined, supporting direct access

Using WCAG 2.0

Ideal time for experimental implementations
Does not yet supercede WCAG 1.0
Authorized translations
Harmonization

Standards bodies should track WCAG drafts and harmonize as soon as possible.
Should begin work on Authorized translations now. Translations (Dutch, French, Spanish, Polish, Japanese) exist of old drafts, but none yet of current draft
Corporate and national standards should work on harmonization now

Does WCAG 2.0 go far enough?

Impact of Requirements for WCAG 2.0
Additional advice complements WCAG 2.0
Use within a user-centered design process

Requirements such as testability have restricted what can go in guidelines
One criticism we receive is that guidelines do not go far enough for some people with disabilities. There are limits to how far we've gone in order to remain testable and technology neutral, and not impinge excessively on site design. However, authors may choose to add accessibility features that go beyond WCAG 2.0, while still conforming to WCAG 2.0. Additional accessibility guidelines should complement WCAG 2.0, not compete with it.

WAI-ARIA: Making accessibility sing

Bridge to platform accessibility APIs
Can be used when a technology doesn't provide a necessary feature
Does not replace native semantics
Complex taxonomy but simple implementation
Mainly for toolkits and Web applications, should "just work" for authors
Works in concert with WCAG 2.0

ARIA has mapping to the major accessibility APIs: MSAA, UIAutomation, IAccessible2, @@Gnu Accessibility Toolkit

The WAI-ARIA Suite

WAI-ARIA supports:

Widgets
Live regions
Navigation landmarks
Changeable states
Event notifications

WAI-ARIA status

Still a Working Draft, though mostly complete
Works as a host language extension
Focusing on browser implementation
Already has widespread beta implementation in browsers
Web applications in development
Toolkits facilitate author use

Browser implementions: Firefox, Opera, IE 8
Assistive technologies: FireVox
Toolkits: Dojo, @@
Products: @@

Other W3C Work

Components of accessibility

Making sure the Web stays accessible

Standardization of new technologies
- Provide accessibility features immediatey
- Respond quickly: add accessibility features to emerging technologies
Keep WCAG 2.0 techniques up to date
WCAG 2 and WAI-ARIA set stage for doing this

Thank you

Questions?

Michael Cooper: cooper@w3.org

This presentation: http://www.w3.org/2008/Talks/0711-ICCHP-MC/