Web Accessibility Standards and Guidelines
Update 2010 [ATIA 2010 Handout]

Shawn Lawton Henry
http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/

WAI Home page: www.w3.org/WAI/
A more comprehensive version of this information is online at www.w3.org/WAI/Resources/

    New WAI Resources in 2009
    
      Accessibility - W3C

        www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

      
      Briefly introduces Web accessibility and links to additional
        resources.
      Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization

        www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/
      Presents benefits and costs of Web accessibility and includes guidance on incorporating these aspects into a specific organization's business case. Includes separate pages for Social Factors, 
        Technical Factors, Financial Factors, and Legal & Policy Factors.

        Updated to more thoroughly address the impact of Web accessibility on older users, as part of the WAI-AGE Project. Older users are an increasing market segment and an important target group for many organizations. This update also includes references to the new WCAG 2.

        New Resources Appendix provides a collection of statistics, case studies, and articles that support the business case for web accessibility. 
      An appendix to the main resource that 
      Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility

http://www.w3.org/WAI/users/involving
      Describes how project managers, designers, and developers can better understand accessibility issues and implement more effective accessibility solutions in their websites and web applications; browsers, media players, and assistive technologies; authoring tools such as content management systems (CMS), blog software, and WYSIWYG editors; standards and policies on accessibility; web technologies and technical specifications.
      Multimedia Accessibility FAQ

      http://www.w3.org/2008/06/video-notes
      In order to help the community provide accessible multimedia, W3C made public it's internal Multimedia Accessibility FAQ. The FAQ provides some practical advice on: What do I need to do to make audio and video accessible? How do I get a transcript for my media? How do I do captions? Where can I get more information?
      Mobile Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices

        www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/ 
      Introduces the significant overlap between making a website accessible for a mobile device and for people with disabilities. Links to Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices and Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
      Contacting Organizations about Inaccessible Websites

        www.w3.org/WAI/users/inaccessible
      Encourages telling organizations about accessibility barriers on their website. Provides guidance on identifying key contacts, describing the problem, and following up as needed. Includes tips and sample e-mails. (See also the blog post: Take a few minutes to encourage web accessibility. Your voice counts. http://www.w3.org/QA/2010/01/encourage_accessibility_make_a_difference.html )
       
       
       
    
  

Introducing Accessibility

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops strategies, guidelines, and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities. The following WAI resources are intended to provide basic information for people who are new to Web accessibility.


Introduction to Web Accessibility www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility: Briefly introduces Web accessibility and links to additional resources.
Essential Components of Web Accessibility www.w3.org/WAI/intro/components: Shows how Web accessibility depends on several components of Web development and interaction working together and shows the relationship between the WAI guidelines.
Introduction to "How People with Disabilities Use the Web" www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web: Introduces detailed examples of people with different disabilities using Web sites, applications, browsers, and authoring tools.
Handouts www.w3.org/WAI/flyer/Overview: Links to handouts for you to print and distribute at conferences, presentations, and other outreach opportunities.

Guidelines & Techniques

WAI develops a series of accessibility standards and guidelines that are introduced in
Essential Components of Web Accessibility ( www.w3.org/WAI/intro/components ) and listed below:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag: Addresses the information in a Web site, including text, images, forms, sounds, and such.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) Overview www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria: Addresses dynamic Web content and Web applications developed with Ajax, DHTML, and other Web technologies.
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) Overview www.w3.org/WAI/intro/atag: Addresses software that creates Web sites.
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) Overview www.w3.org/WAI/intro/uaag: Addresses Web browsers and media players, and relates to assistive technologies.
Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) Overview www.w3.org/WAI/intro/earl: Addresses the expression of Web site evaluation test results in a platform independent format.
How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute www.w3.org/WAI/intro/w3c-process: Introduces how WAI works through a process designed to ensure broad community input and encourage consensus development.

Managing Accessibility

Policy Resources www.w3.org/WAI/policy-res

Links to:

Why Standards Harmonization is Essential to Web Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/harmon
International Policies Relating to Web Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/
Developing Organizational Policies on Web Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/impl/pol

Developing a Web Accessibility Business Case for Your Organization www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/Overview

Presents benefits and costs of Web accessibility and includes guidance on incorporating these aspects into a specific organization's business case. Includes separate pages for Social Factors, Technical Factors, Financial Factors, and Legal & Policy Factors.

Implementing Accessibility

Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/impl/
Outlines considerations for planning a process for implementing accessibility.
Improving the Accessibility of Your Web Site
www.w3.org/WAI/impl/improving
Provides approaches and tips for fixing accessibility barriers in existing Web sites; in other words, repairing accessibility problems, or retrofitting a site to improve accessibility.
Mobile Resources:
- Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile Devices
  www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/
- Experiences Shared by People with Disabilities and by People Using Mobile Devices
  www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences
Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/impl/software

Technical Papers www.w3.org/WAI/techpapers

Links to WAI technical papers and and proceedings from research and development events, including

Overview of "Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review"
www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wai-age-literature
Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA
www.w3.org/WAI/intro/captcha

Evaluating Accessibility
www.w3.org/WAI/eval/

"Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility" is a multi-page resource suite that outlines different approaches for evaluating Web sites for accessibility. While it does not provide checkpoint-by-checkpoint testing techniques, it does provide general procedures and tips for evaluation in different situations, from evaluation during Web site development to ongoing monitoring of existing sites. The approaches in these pages are intended to supplement other content management and quality assurance procedures.

The "Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility" resource suite covers different aspects of evaluation, including:

Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation www.w3.org/WAI/eval/users: Provides guidance on including people with disabilities ("users") in accessibility evaluation throughout Web development.
Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools www.w3.org/WAI/eval/selectingtools: Provides guidance on choosing which Web accessibility evaluation tools to use to help evaluate Web accessibility.
Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List Search www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools: Provides a comprehensive list of Web accessibility evaluation tools that is searchable and sortable.

About WAI

WAI works with organizations around the world to develop guidelines and resources to help make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.

Participating in WAI www.w3.org/WAI/participation: Describes participation opportunities ranging from volunteering to implement, promote, and review guidelines, to occasional participation in an interest group, to dedicated participation in a working group.
WAI Projects www.w3.org/WAI/about/projects: Links to information on projects such as the Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation (WAI-AGE) Project ( www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE ).

Section 508

Update of the 508 Standards and the Telecommunications Act Guidelines http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/update-index.htm

Usable Accessibility Resources, uiAccess

Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design www.uiaccess.com/JustAsk: A book that helps designers and developers create websites, software, hardware, and consumer products that are accessible to people with disabilities, provide a better user experience for all, and realize the additional benefits of accessibility. Available online.
Videos of How People with Disabilities use ICT www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/resources_videos.html: Lists videos of people with disabilities using information and communications technology (ICT), especially with assistive technologies (AT).
Transcripts on the Web: Getting people to your podcasts and videos www.uiaccess.com/transcripts/transcripts_on_the_web.html: Summary: It's easy and relatively inexpensive for website developers to provide transcripts for multimedia. It many cases transcripts are required by law to provide access to information for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Transcripts are an SEO silver bullet for audio and video, and bring more people to your podcast, videos, and website.

Web Accessibility Standards and Guidelines Update 2010 [ATIA 2010 Handout]

New WAI Resources in 2009