Restore Specific Accessibility Features of HTML 4.01 Until New/Superior Solutions Agreed-Upon

Summary

Rationale

The proposal intends to provide a safety net for known accessibility features which have already been supported, but for which no replacement or superior solution has been agreed-upon.

HTML 4.01 was subject to an intensive analysis for potential and known accessibility issues before it became a recommendation in December 1997. By the time activity on HTML5 was moved to the W3C, however, many such features had been stripped from HTML, many as "neglible use cases". Since then, however, previously deprecated accessibility features have begun to creep back into HTML5. This change proposal, therefore, seeks to provide a safety net for known, implemented features, functions, and syntax which was specifically added to HTML 4.01 to increase accessibility, and for which there have not been any advances or improvements in HTML5. This is particularly important as HTML5 is being implemented piecemeal by developers, before a static specification is achieved -- therefore, HTML5 should retain those accessibility features of HTML in order to facillitate the ability of persons with disabilities to use sites and user agents that are incrementally phasing in support for HTML5 markup.

Details

Impact

Positive Effects

• List advantages

Negative Effects

• List disadvantages

Conformance Classes Changes

Risks

References

• HTML 4.0 Accessibility Improvements (note: although this reference has been superseded by WCAG, it provides an invaluable starting point for this anyalysis/proposal)
• latest editor's draft of HTML5 differences from HTML4 is available from: http://dev.w3.org/html5/html4-differences/
• latest editor's draft of HTML5: A vocabulary and associated APIs for HTML and XHTML is available from: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/