The WCAG working group sent out this information this week. They want testing and feedback from people who implement the candidate recommendation on working web sites.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group is excited to
announce the publication of WCAG 2.0 as a W3C Candidate Recommendation on 30
April. WCAG 2.0 explains how to make Web sites, applications, and other
content accessible to people with disabilities, and many elderly users.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-WCAG20-20080430/Candidate Recommendation (CR) is a major step in the W3C standards
development process; it signals that there is broad consensus in the Working
Group and among public reviewers on the technical content of WCAG 2.0.
The quick reference to the recommendations is now customizable. You can now pick only the sections you want to see. Otherwise, it is pure W3C, with multiple clicks needed to get to what you want.
In the past, there has been a blanket demand for alt text for all images (at least by the accessiblity validating tools) that is up for change. Here’s one of the success criteria for non-text content.
Decoration, Formatting, Invisible: If non-text content is pure decoration, is used only for visual formatting, or is not presented to users, then it is implemented in a way that it can be ignored by assistive technology.
I fervently hope that this means if an image is decorative only, alt text will no longer be required to pass the validation tests for proof of accessibility. This is a needed step.
The success criteria for navigation by keyboard or with screen readers include:
- Adding a link at the top of each page that goes directly to the main content area
- Adding links at the top of the page to each area of the content
- Adding a link at the beginning of a block of repeated content to go to the end of the block
This used to be called skip navigation. Now they are calling it “bypass blocks.” The criteria also include bypassing with structural elements such as headings. :
- Providing heading elements at the beginning of each section of content (HTML)
- Using structural elements to group links (HTML)
- Using frame elements to group blocks of repeated material (HTML) AND Using the title attribute of the frame and iframe elements (HTML)
- Using an expandable and collapsible menu (future link)
It will be interesting to see what the future information on expandable and collapsible menus becomes, with accordion panels becoming so popular on the web.