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WAI: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities

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Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home

1. Introducing Accessibility
2. Guidelines & Techniques
   1. Web Content (WCAG)
      • WCAG 2.0 technical
        1. How to Meet (Quick Reference)
        2. WCAG 2.0
        3. Techniques
        4. Understanding
      • WCAG 2.0 educational
        1. The WCAG Documents
        2. WCAG at a Glance
        3. WCAG 2 FAQ
        4. Presentations
      • Transition to 2.0
        1. How 2.0 Differs from 1.0
        2. Comparison of 1.0 to 2.0
        3. Update Your Website
      • Submission forms
        1. Submitting Techniques
      • WCAG 1.0 documents
   2. Authoring Tool (ATAG)
   3. User Agent (UAAG)
   4. Evaluation Language (EARL)
   5. WAI-ARIA (Rich Applications)
   6. Specific Technologies
   7. Development Process
3. Managing Accessibility
4. Evaluating Accessibility
5. WAI Groups
6. About WAI

Translating WCAG 2.0

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is widely recognized as the standard for Web accessibility. In order to promote its adoption and implementation, we encourage the development of translations into different languages. There are two types of translations:

• Voluntary translations are not reviewed, and not endorsed by W3C
• Authorized translations follow a review process, and are endorsed by W3C

Please see a list of currently existing WCAG 2.0 translations.

WCAG 2.0 Documents

The source for the WCAG 2.0 Documents is in XML format, so that the content can be reused to create different views. For instance, the How to Meet WCAG 2.0 is customizable quick reference to WCAG 2.0 that includes all of the guidelines, success criteria, and techniques taken from the other documents. Also the Understanding WCAG 2.0 document reuses the above to add background information and explanations, and the Techniques for WCAG 2.0 document uses the XML to create a multi-page view of the content.

We recommend the development of authorized translations for the WCAG 2.0 document itself and voluntary translations for its supporting documents.

Translation approaches

We recommend translation of the XML source directly, so that the content can be reused. This applies to any of the WCAG 2.0 documents and to any form of translation. Please see instructions for translating the XML source, which includes information about generating HTML versions from the XML source as well as about tools for working with the XML source.

If you are unable to work with the XML source directly, please follow the instructions for translating the HTML in order to provide a format that preserves the original code structure as much as possible, which may allow a later conversion to XML.

Localization support materials

The following resources are intended as tools to facilitate the translation process. These are expected to grow over time.

• Explanation of terms: List of terms that have proved difficult to translate, with explanations
• Special terms: List of terms that should be translated consistently throughout document

Content last updated: $Date: 2009/01/27 22:32:01 $

[Contacting WAI]