Buzz Archives for March 2003
The Business Benefits of Web Standards
From DevEdge: More with less seems to be the mission impossible for web designers: Addressing more customers, a broader audience, more diversity in terms of browsers, more accessibility, users asking for more speed, while spending less to maintain or redesign a web site. Caught between a rock and a hard ...
By Meryl K. Evans | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Parlez-vous standards?
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There's a new resource on the web for French-speaking developers with an interest in supporting web standards. Openweb has finally been unleashed by standards advocate Tristan Nitot, and offers a wealth of information about W3C technologies including XHTML, CSS, the DOM and web accessibility. The site includes links to the usual ...
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- Made for all, live to all
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Interested in web accessibility? It might be worth your while checking out a new site that has just gone live today entitled Made For All. The site kicks off the first issue with an interview with RNIB Campaigns Officer Julie Howell (brough to you by WaSP member Anitra Pavka) and a feature about ...
By Ian Lloyd | Filed in Accessibility
- R.I.P. glasshaus, Peer
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For all those who enjoyed books from glasshaus, Wrox, and Friends of Ed, it's time to pay respects and wave goodbye. Parent company, Peer Information, has gone completely belly-up. So, staff members are now out of jobs, authors are out of future creative opportunities (not to mention royalties), and we ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | Filed in Web Standards (general)
- The browser formerly known as Chimera
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Camino 0.7 has finally been released. Camino (formerly known as Chimera) is an open source browser for Mac OS X based on the standards-compliant Gecko rendering engine (the same engine used by Mozilla, Netscape 7, Phoenix, and Galeon). This is the first major release of Camino since Apple released the first beta ...
By Mark Pilgrim | Filed in Browsers
- WebAIM 2003 Online Web Accessibility Training Event
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WebAIM is sponsoring an online training event this year. The 3-week event will take place between March 31 and April 18. Registration and information is on the WebAIM Web site.
By Meryl K. Evans | Filed in Training
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)