Web Site Design by David Rutstein from A to Z

WCAG 1.0 is a huge leap out of the dark, but it is also an aging specification, and it is not always as clear or as detailed as a standard should be. To clean up the parts that are vague, and to address changes in web development since WCAG 1.0 was new, WAI has developed a WCAG 2.0 specification , which is in final review status as this book heads to the printer.
Not everyone loves the results. Days before WCAG 2.0 was set to go from draft to published guideline, accessibility expert Joe Clark argued that “the fundamentals of WCAG 2 are nearly impossible for a working standards-compliant developer to understand,” and recommended that accessibility experts fix the errata in WCAG 1 instead . As I write this, I can’t say whether WCAG 2.x will eventually incorporate any of Clark’s recommended changes.

Likewise, I don’t know if WCAG 2.0 will gain wide acceptance or if designers, developers, and bureaucrats worldwide will stick with WCAG 1.0. This chapter will concern itself with general principles of accessibility and with specifics of WCAG 1.0 and U.S. Section 508 (with occasional dollops of the WCAG 2.0 draft).
WCAG 1.0 offers three standardized levels of access, from the readily achieved (Priority 1), to one that requires slightly more work (Priority 2), to a master level (Priority 3). WCAG 2.0 also offers three levels.

The point of the three levels is that accessibility, like the other forms of standards compliance discussed in this book, is a continuum rather than an “all or nothing” affair. Your first CSS site might have imperfect semantics and might even use a table or two as a layout container, but you would at least be trying. Likewise, with a small and reasonable effort, any of useven those who are new to accessibility can attain Priority 1 conformance or something close to it.

In so doing, we’ll begin making our sites available to many of those whom we had previously locked out. In this chapter, we will cut through some of the confusion, dismiss cobweb-coated myths that befuddle many otherwise sophisticated web professionals, and provide a practical overview of common-sense, applied accessibility. We’ll also discuss tools that can help you incorporate accessibility into your design practice and point out the limitations of those tools.

No chapter can cover web accessibility in its entirety. Indeed, few whole books really get at the heart of the thing, even when accessibility is their stated subject. Some books on the topic contribute to designers’ confusion about or hostility toward access. Two books, however, do focus on accessibility in a designer-friendly way, and I’ll commend them to your attention in a moment.