The WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines [1] are now (since 30 April) a W3C
Candidate Recommendation - the final stage before being a W3C standard.
The timing is quite good for institutions, as this provides time to update
policies, training courses, etc in time for the next academic year.
But how are universities going about this? I recently came across that
"Accessibility 2.0: a million flowers bloom" conference. The event, which
was organised by AbilityNet, described itself as "the first ever conference
focussing on web accessibility in a Web 2.0 world. By Web 2.0 we mean rich
web applications which allow users to create content by writing blogs,
uploading videos or commenting on other user' content and creating
networks". And, as I described in a blog post [2], TV Raman (a blind
software engineer who developed the Talking Emacs extension) pointed out
that the Web has moved on from being an information environment to an
application environment: "Originally conceived as a system for the global
distribution of hypertext documents, The Web has evolved to become a
universal application platform that delivers ubiquitous end-user information
services. In achieving this, we have collectively innovated with respect to
main-stream users... now, it's time to apply the same level of innovation to
achieve every-person access"
These views echoes those which myself, David Sloan, Professor Helen Petrie
and others have been making over the years - indeed we coined the term
'Accessibility 2.0' in a paper given at the W4A 2007 conference [3]. And
this year we presented a paper on "One World, One Web ... But Great
Diversity" [4] which described the application of our holistic,
user-focussed approach to Web accessibility in the context of Web 2.0 and
social networks.
The challenge, though, is embedding such approaches, which has been endorsed
by key players in the UK accessibility sector [5], within institutions. My
view is that this needs to be a collaborative approach, sharing approaches
to training, development of policies, improved work flow systems, etc. - and
de-emphasising the focus on tools for checking the conformance of resources
with out-dated guidelines.
Any thoughts on how the sector should proceed? Has anyone any examples of
how they are approaching this?
Thanks
Brian
References
1 WCAG 2.0, http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/
2 Is Accessibility 2.0 Becoming Mainstream?,
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/is-accessibility-20-becoming-main
stream/
3 Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies and Processes,
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/w4a-2007/
4 One World, One Web ... But Great Diversity,
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/w4a-2008/
5 Accessibility Summit II: A User-Focussed Approach to Web Accessibility,
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/accessibility-summit-2006-1
1/e-government-2006-11-13.php
--------------------------------
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, BATH, UK, BA2 7AY
Email: [log in to unmask]
Phone: +44 1225 383943
Web site: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
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