About Web Accessibility

Priority 1, 2 and 3 Accessibility Guidelines

With the exponential growth of and reliance upon the Web during the 1990s also came, inevitably, the first lawsuits filed by would-be Web users who were unable to access content. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published the first Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) in May 1999 to provide Web designers and programmers the concepts and instructions they would need to employ to make sites usable to users with disabilities. The guidelines established coding priorities to give Web technicians and their clients options:

• Priority 1: These are the "musts" — the least stringent, bare minimum requirements that must be met for a page to be considered accessible. Examples:
  • Provide alternative text for all nontext elements
  • Do not use color alone to convey information or meaning
  • Ensure that the site will render meaningfully if the user has style sheets turned off
• Priority 2: These are "shoulds" — checkpoints Web designers should meet to assure accessibility. Examples:
  • Avoid using deprecated W3C tags and technologies
  • Use style sheets; separate site presentation from content
• Priority 3: These are the "mays" — optional checkpoints Web designers may wish to address to ensure maximum accessibility. Examples:
  • Provide navigation to lead the user through the site
  • Provide a logical tab order through links and form controls

Check out the complete guidelines and tools:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0; May 1999): http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0; working draft of July 30, 2004): http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-WCAG20-20040730/

Section 508

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to include Section 508, which mandated equal access to electronic media for persons with disabilities working within the federal government or whose employers have contracts with or receive funding from the federal government. Section 508's enforceable application is modest, and as technical guidelines go, it is less stringent than the W3C's Priority 1 guidelines, below. On the up side, however, all federal Web sites are now reasonably accessible. (If you've ever wondered why your new TV or the one you watch while working out at the gym has closed-captioning built in, thank Section 508.)

Check out the full text:

• Section 508 Standards: www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12