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Buzz Archives for June 2008

hAccessibility redux?

Thanks to Sebastian Snopek from the International Liaison Group (WaSP ILG), this post is also available in Polish: Wtórny hAccessibility?. Fanning the fires of the ABBR pattern debate, the developers at BBC Radio Labs announced today that they'll be removing the hCalendar microformat from their programmes listing pages, pending further ...

By Patrick Lauke | Filed in Accessibility

RNIB Surf Right Toolbar available for IE

Those clever folks at the Royal National Institute of Blind People have teamed up with the Web Accessibility Tools Consortium and The Paciello Group to produce a toolbar for Internet Explorer that exposes some of its usually buried accessibility options. It's not for developers so much as end-users; the RNIB say The ...

By Bruce Lawson | Filed in Accessibility

Easy-to-use Flickr and YouTube

It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that accessibility is only about the blind people with physical disabilities, and forget about those with cognitive difficulties, or those who are new to the Web. Many pages are very busy and confusing and hence off-putting. Flame-haired DOMscripting lovegod Christian Heillman, ...

By Bruce Lawson | Filed in Accessibility

Opera 9.5 released

Just a short buzz: the final version of Opera 9.5 was released today, with a boatload of exciting features. Of particular interest: excellent support for current standards — (X)HTML, XML, XSLT, CSS 2.1, SVG 1.1 partial implementations of new emerging standards — CSS 3, HTML 5, and ARIA More details about the browser's ...

By Patrick Lauke | Filed in Browsers, Outreach

Spry turns two

Adobe’s JavaScript frameworks is maturing, but there’s still room for improvement.

By Aaron Gustafson | Filed in Adobe TF

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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)

More Buzz articles

Title Author
Introduction to WAI ARIA - available in Spanish and French Henny Swan
“Just ask: Integrating accessibility throughout design” available in English, Japanese and Spanish Henny Swan
BSI British Standards invites comments on new draft standard on accessible web content Patrick Lauke
Want to set up a Web Standards Café? Henny Swan

All of the entries posted in WaSP Buzz express the opinions of their individual authors. They do not necessarily reflect the plans or positions of the Web Standards Project as a group.

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