User Experience to update Web Accessibility Guidelines

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium is taking a more structured approach to user experience with an effort to convert them into accessible Web design.

The latest Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) will include user feedback so that Web designers will get better guidance on improving accessibility while designing. Unlike WCAG 1.0, the success criteria of WCAG 2.0 are meant to be testable.

While checkpoints in WCAG 1.0 give design suggestions, they do not give detailed recommendations so that designers can implement the same. Judy Brewer, director of WAI said, “Our goal is to enable more reliable assessment of conformance to WCAG 2.0.”

Developing WCAG 2.0 was time-consuming since it involved acquiring extensive inputs from users of WCAG 1.0 from across the globe. WCAG 2.0 is in line with ensuring that work on accessibility is at par with innovations in technology.

WCAG 2.0 will be released only once public feedback is analyzed and a revised draft is prepared. W3C will inspect the new guidelines and then approve them.

Source: W3C