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Assistive Technology -- Making Web Pages Accessible Part 1

This version was saved 10 years, 6 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Ryan S. Overdorf
on September 25, 2013 at 7:52:17 pm
 

Introduction to Web Accessibility 

 

Other "Making Web Pages Accessible" parts: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

 

Origin

 

Unlike other situations other CS-SIS members may commonly encounter, web accessibility awareness does not usually begin with a memo from a University Disability Resource Center.  The Justice Department will be issued proposed regulations on web accessibility and state and local governments in November 2013.  It will issue proposed regulations on web accessibility for private institutions in March 2014.  For more information about the law, refer to Assistive Technology -- Understanding the Law and the section on web accessibility.

 

Identifying the Right Standard

 

Most readers (to the extent that they have heard of web accessibility at all), have heard of the Section 508 standards.  The Section 508 standards with respect to web pages are essentially a checklist of eleven items meant to address common concerns at the time the regulation was drafted.  They were expressly based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)  1.0 developed by W3C.  Those standards are outdated.  While a web page that meets Section 508 standards would be more accessible  than one that does not, the gold standard for accessibility is WCAG 2.0.

 

Summarizing WCAG 2.0

 

WCAG 2.0 is organized by Principles, Guidelines, and Success Criteria.  The principles are general objectives and each of the four principles can be summarized in a single word: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.  Each of the 12 guidelines is a plain English one sentence statement of what needs to be achieved.  The 12 Success Criteria relevant to "A" level conformance and the 26 additional Success Criteria relevant to "AA" level conformance provide highly technical testable criteria by which to measure conformance.

 

Not all of the criteria are likely to apply to every page.  Some of the criteria can be conformed to without much conscious thought or effort because most webmasters/developers/content creators do certain things anyway.  Many can be conformed to with a relatively modest amount of effort.  A few require considerable time and effort.

 

The Structure of These Pages

 

 The Committee will not attempt a detailed explanation of how to conform to each of the 38 Success Criteria applicable to either "A" or "AA"level conformance.  Instead, the Committee will briefly summarize each criterion in non-technical language, rate the difficulty level of achieving conformance, assess the impact of non-conformance for that criterion, discuss how to validate for that criterion (including links to web-based validators, if applicable) and provide links to detailed third-party information regarding how to conform to the criterion.

 

A Word About the Free AChecker Web Accessibility Tool

 

 

 

 

[end part 1]

 

Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

 

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