The web has become an integral part of day to day life. The web is used to access information, entertainment, education, employment, and commerce. Many organizations have capitalized on the low cost of distributing information on the web and have cut back traditional delivery methods. Sites must be developed so that people of all abilities can access this vital information.
It is much easier to overcome many of the barriers to the disabled on the web than in traditional media. Screen readers, Braille monitors and other adaptive technologies allow disabled people to use the same content as able bodied people with no additional cost to the organization producing the information.
There are a large number of disabled people using the web. The recent report of US health department cites that nearly 20 percent of the US population is afflicted with some sort of disability. This is a broad definition that includes everything from temporary disabilities, colour blindness to quadriplegics but as our population ages, this is likely to increase. Planning ahead can ensure that these people will continue to be able to access your web site throughout life’s changes.
If doing the right thing is not enough of a motivation, the final reason to plan for web accessibility is the growing amount of legislation. The US has legislation that requires all federally funded web sites to be Accessible (Section 508). Many other governments have existing legislation or are considering it.
There are two major frameworks that people follow for determining Web Accessibility.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) created a set of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) in 1999 and updated them (WCAG 2.0) in December 2008. The W3C is an influential international body that sets guidelines for many aspects of the web. WCAG is used as a reference point in many jurisdictions around the world.
The other major framework for our purposes is the US Section 508 legislation. Any organization in the US that receives funding from the Federal Government must ensure compliance with a set of accessibility guidelines. The good news is that the US 508 requirements nicely match the WCAG guidelines. Many other governments have existing legislation or guidelines.
To be included in the WCAG 2.0, each criterion must create a greater problem for people with disabilities than for those without disabilities. All criteria are also testable by a combination of human or machines. They have done a good job removing ambiguity.
The W3C has three levels of compliance: A (lowest), AA, and AAA (highest). The levels were determined based on many factors: