Change Log

Unified Web Accessibility Guidelines

Last updated January 20, 1998

Changes between version 7.2 and 8

1. This is the last official Trace guidelines.  Version 8 is being used as the working draft for the WAI's guidelines.
2. Change in format
   1. Created a "5+1" layer approach: 
      1. Web Access: Why Is It Important? (in 2 pages or less)
         A brief introduction to the issues around web access for executives responsible for websites
      2. Understanding Disabilities and Web Access Issues
         A discussion of the different types of disabilities and their effect on access to the web
      3. A series of Check Lists
         • Checklist for web authors - about two printed pages
         • Checklist for user agent (browser) developers
         • Checklist for web server developers
         • Checklist for web tool developers
      4. A series of Guidelines
         • Guidelines for web authors - about six printed pages
         • Guidelines for user agent (browser) developers
         • Guidelines for web server developers
         • Guidelines for web tool developers
      5. The Unified Website Access Guidelines Master Document
         The melting pot of issues and guidelines for all of the previously listed groups.
      6. Web Access Resource Site
         A website containing extended discussions, case studies, demonstrations, tools, references to other guidelines and efforts related to web access, etc.
   2. Version 7.2 is the basis for the master document.  The author guidelines are similar to previous versions of the "Quick Reference" with more examples and several new guidelines.  The check lists are a new development.
   3. The final layer, the resource area, is still under development.
3. Lots of new guidelines, examples and information.  Every section has been revamped.

Log of changes to version 8

This is not a complete list of all changes made, there have been so many (smile) but it covers the major ones.

Misc.

• Added links from the Author Checklist to the Author Guidelines, and from the Author Guidelines to the Central Reference Document and HTML 4.0 Specification.  1998.01.20
• (change to the reference guide only)  A few of the early sections of the HTML 4.0 recommendation were reorganized into one fewer section (reduced from 25 total to 24).  We updated the master document to reflect the changes by renumbering effected sections and updating the names of the place-holders. 1998.01.09
• Got rid of the guidelines that each page should have a title, since titles are required in 4.0 and is not an accessibility issue (more usable).  (1997.12)
• Deleted the rest of the section since both items dealt with color issues. Except for images, if they have followed the rest of the guidelines color contrast becomes a moot point, no? UNLESS the user doesn't know how to override color with either style sheets or browser settings.  (1997.12)
• Adding more detail to the quick reference (particularly just examples).  (1997.12)  
• Changed "tag" to "element" where appropriate (most instances) in all three versions of the document (ala Jason White)  (1997.12)
• Phill's grammatical suggestions were made.  (1997.12)
• Where appropriate, changed "screen reader" to "assistive technology" as per Jason White's comments. We did not change all instances because most instances are specific examples where screen readers have problems and we are assuming that future assistive technologies will not inherit these problems.  (1997.12)
• More qualification that it is "dumb" screen readers having all of the problems not markup aware products (ala Daniel Dardailler). Have changed these references to something more like, "most current screen readers (which do not interpret the HTML)."  (1997.12)
• "Required" guidelines are grouped before "Recommended" (within each section).  (1997.12)

Language information and text direction

• Deleted the date format recommendation (ala Chetz Colwell and others).  (1997.12)

Images

• In response to "Appendix A states that alt-text should be simple, but perhaps this should probably be stated in the guideline itself. If not, the guideline should refer to the Appendix." Added "Notice that alternate text is a brief description. >8snip8< Several tips and tricks concerning alternate text can be found in the appendix."  (1997.12)

Applets (and Scripts)

• Tried to generalize these solutions in much the same way as we did images and a/v (i.e. lots of reworking here).  (1997.12)
• Combined applets and scripts into one section.  (1997.12)
• Added "Scripts and applets are keyboard operable."  (1997.12)

Video and Audio

Links

• Ala Chetz Colwell, added the conditional that link phrases not get too verbose. new guideline is: Link phrases make sense when read out of context (but are not too verbose).   (1997.12)
• In response to "13.5 Use of graphics decreases cognitive load, Issue It seems important to mention that the design of effective icons and buttons is not a trivial task (for example, are the functions of all the icons used in Microsoft Word immediately intuitive?), and that the design of graphics to support navigation by people with cognitive disabilities may be even more difficult. There is much debate about whether images and icons mean the same thing to all people, even those who have so-called "normal" cognitive abilities." The following phrase was added "Keep in mind that the design of effective icons is not a trivial task due to the variety of possible interpretations by people based on personal differences."   (1997.12)

Tables

• Added guidelines and examples for semantic markup of tables.  (1997.12)

Frames

• Added - Provide descriptions of the layout and purpose of frames and how multiple frames relate to each other.  (1998.01.09)

Forms

• Added
  1. For long lists of selections, group items into a hierarchy.  (1998.01.09)
  2. Image maps have not been used to create graphical buttons. (1997.12)
  3. Alt-text is provided for images used as buttons. (1997.12)
  4. Lots of examples to the checklist.  (1997.12)

Tips and Tricks

• Added
  1. Create a single downloadable file for documents that exist as a series of separate pages.    (1998.01.09)
  2. Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc. to decrease the amount of sifting readers perform to find important information.     (1998.01.09)

Structure and Navigation ( renamed to "Good Web Site Design Practices")

• Added: Nothing within the site prevents keyboard operation.  (1997.12)
• Items that do not fit under "tips and tricks" which are also site wide good ideas have been moved to this section.  (1997.12)

Created new section (Tips and tricks to further enhance the usability of pages)

• This section includes items that we didn't want to rate as "Required" or "Recommended." Most of these were tagged at the meeting as needing to go further back in the document.  (1997.12)

Ratings

• We were able to condense it down into two levels, "Required" and "Recommended." Currently using style sheets to make the words icons (as Liddy suggested) but then they don't appear that way in older browsers so it is hard to easily pick out which are required vs recommended... (1997.12)
• Replace "today" and "tomorrow" with "new" and "interim."  Those recommendations that are "timeless" are not marked, but the solutions might be.  (1997.12)

Version 8 open issues

Multimedia

1. "Visual notifications are provided for all sounds that are played automatically." To be handled by the browser? However, need a spot for the author to include what will be displayed by the browser (like the alt for images).
2. "For very short sounds, a brief description is included in the link to the sound file using the TITLE attribute."
   - DECORATION VS CONTENT
   - MARKING STRUCTURE
3. affect of SMIL on guidelines for a/v. SMIL handle streaming a/v??

Alternative text

1. "Alternate text is provided for all images and image maps." We still need to figure out how to handle decorative.
2. Leonard Kasday's group has created page with some examples and suggestions for alt-text available at http://www.att.com/style/alt text.html based on their survey data gathered February of 1997.
3. We're in the midst of gathering the comments from the wai listservs and others. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/1997OctDec/subject.ht ml

Misc other questions

1. What do we do RE XML??  what was the consensus on this?
2. What recommendations should we make in the guidelines for using meta data and/or LINK, and RDF?
3. Should we add recommendations in regards to grouping rows (w/thead, tfoot and tbody), grouping columns (colgroup and col)??  We've include info about scope and headers for including meta information about cells,  the groupings are important also.
4. What should be our priorities for Dynamic Pages? Should a working group be created? People seemed to think it was an issue, but we didn't hear a particular ruling on creating a subgroup.
5. Education and Outreach should decide which audiences we want to target with 2 Page Introductions (such as managers, teachers...)
6. We will not decide on the recommendation "All images used as anchors have descriptive titles"  until we see what browsers are doing today (and how alt-text issue resolved).
7. Ala Chetz Colwell: "Section 14.3 Viewing and interacting with images, Recommendations for authors, 3, paragraph 3. I like the suggestion that page authors who use D-links could include an explanation of what it represents, but this may fit better in Appendix A, Design notes, with a reference to the Appendix in the guideline." left as is for now.
8. Also via Chetz: "10.1 Text formatting, Issues, Tags affected I (Chetz Colwell) like the idea of naming the relevant tags in each section. However, in this case perhaps they should be listed along with each Issue, rather than being listed at the end of all the Issues. This also applies to Section 11 (and others?)."
9. Ala Daniel Dardailler - "[He'd] like to have the quick and check list in some sort of prioritized order, not just the header of the guideline doc. Some kind of top 5 and then the rest."
10.   There is no recommendation regarding the <Q> element.  Should there be?