WCAG 2.0

Accessibility and Compliance

What is a wuh-cag?

  • W3C published web content accessibility guidelines
  • Considered to be a "technical standard"
  • 508 Compliance standards set by Section 508 of Rehabilitation Act
    • Generally stricter; only required for govt agencies

How does this relate to ADA?

  • ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) identified high level standards for accessible design
  • ADA compliance is achieved through following WCAG identified guidelines

But what's the law?

  • Currently actively in flux / a bit murky
  • Not meeting ADA compliance standards is potentially considered a violation of Title III
  • Enforced by the Department of Justice
  • Proposed amendments will most likely be passed in 2018

But I'm not a lawyer?

  • Exactly.
  • NEVER, EVER, EVER (ESPECIALLY IN WRITING FORM) GUARANTEE ADA COMPLIANCE
  • Couch everything. Use phrases like "work towards compliance", "achieve success criterion for certain guidelines", etc.
  • All SOWs should include language explicitly stating compliance can not be guaranteed.

Who completes the work?

  • UX/UI
    • Some guidelines are centered around UX/UI-related items
    • Navigation, copy, use of color
    • A good portion of these are related to redundancy
  • Developer
    • Many guidelines require code updates
    • Some are simple as adding markup attributes; others more complicated (keyboard, language XML tags)
  • Client
    • CMS updates may be required

What's the process?

  • First step is completing audits to identify points of failure and resolution steps
    • Templates created for the Met Opera can be reused
    • Essentially the "discovery/design" portion
    • Provide the client with documentation / proof for legal use
  • Development estimates provided only after audits
  • Initial estimates can be given on the Principle level

WCAG Guidelines

  • Split into 4 principles
    • Perceivable
    • Operable
    • Understandable
    • Robust
  • Each principle has multiple guidelines
  • Each guideline has sub guidelines that are level A, AA, or AAA
  •  A is considered required; AAA is highest level

Principle 1 - Perceivable

  • Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.
  • Provide text alternatives, provide media descriptions / captions, semantic / structurally accurate markup, ensure color is not only means of distinguishing and element, provide appropriate controls

Principle 2 - Operable

  • User interface components and navigation must be operable.
  • All functionality should be keyboard accessible, users should be able to adjust timers and pause/stop animations, flashes that cause seizures should not be used, redundant navigation should be provided (bypass blocks), links should include attributes to indicate purpose, focus order should make sense, page titles / headings & labels should be meaningful

Principle 3 - Understandable

  • Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.
  • Default page language should be set, phrases / content need XML language settings, user should be advised of a change in context, navigation / components should behave consistently, appropriate errors, labels, and confirmation information should be provided

Principle 4 - Robust

  • Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.
  • Markup should be able to be parsed (pass HTML validation), name, role, value, and states of custom user components must be able to be programatically determined through markup settings / ARIA tags

Further Reading

  • https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/?currentsidebar=%23col_customize&levels=aaa
  • https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag

WCAG Compliance

By ehayman

WCAG Compliance

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