This is the sort of headline that I particularly enjoy reading, given my recent focus on web accessibility – “2009: The year websites become accessible to all.”

Opera’s Bruce Lawson recently wrote an article for ZDNet UK discussing the prospects of web accessibility gaining prominence in 2009. He cites some key factors that are converging to paint a promising immediate future for the accessibility.

One, as we discussed in “Accessibility News: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Become W3C Recommendation“, the aged Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 were at least updated formally to 2.0.

Also, standards are expected to be pushed forward this year for Web Accessibility Initiative Accessible Rich Internet Applications — with its goal of Web content and Web applications that more accessible to those with disabilities.

Lawson cites as a factor the hot button issue of legal ramifications as well. Target having to settle out of court for its accessibility lawsuit certainly drew much attention. As as covered my last post, “Accessibility News: Expedia / Hotels.com make considerations for disabled travelers,” Expedia recently announced accessibility strides in response to a lawsuit.

Lawson points out that the British Standards Institution is fast at work on drafting a standard for website accessibility. Such a standard will carry a lot of weight on both sides of the pond.

Read Lawson’s article and his compelling points. Web accessibility has been around for years, but its undeniable that its importance and focus are only elevating.

Tags: aria, british standards institution, bruce lawson, bsi, lawsuits, opera, WCAG, web accessibility initiative accessible rich internet applications, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, zdnet uk

Experienced web designers and developers control their own destiny when building sites from scratch, as it relates to web accessibility. How much (or how little) they choose to adhere to accessibility standards depends on their coding acumen and knowledge.

That’s fine and well for web site development from the ground up, but many people are opting to use trusted content management systems (CMS) for blogging, site upkeep, etcetera. I myself have been in the web industry for over a decade, but opted to use WordPress for this blog instead of taking the extra time to come up with something from scratch.

When you utilize such products, accessibility is at the mercy of their developers, not you, especially when it comes to custom templates.

For starters, let’s look at three of the big players in free CMSs, and see how they tackle the issue of web accessibility. At a later date, I’ll cover some of the bigger commercial tools, such as SharePoint.

WordPress
(accessibility statement) 
WordPress states that it is, out of the box, web accessibility compliant. However, and it perhaps should come as no surprise, it cannot stand behind how well or how poorly people who create their own WordPress templates keep that accessibility intact.

Their accessibility standard then proceeds to do a nice job providing basic guidelines for template creators, covering topics such as alt and title tags, color blindness, browser and mobile considerations, and testing for accessibility. 

Joomla
(accessibility statement)
 Joomla’s accessibility statement appears to be somewhat dated. It states that Joomla’s front end will be web accessibility compliant, as it pertains to WCAG and Section 508, by version 1.5 (which has been out for some time now). However, beyond that, there is no confirmation or detail about the efforts they have or will make.

It then explains how the coding necessary to make the back-end WCAG compliant is intensive and requires ground-up rework, and therefore is targeted to be tackled in the 2.0 versioning.

Like WordPress, Joomla cannot stand by the accessibility of templates that 3rd parties create.

Drupal
I was unable to find an accessibility statement for Drupal, but there is an Accessibility Group. Therein are articles and posts discussing various accessibility tips and topics. Drupal by its nature is very clean and simple — so while I haven’t ripped the cover off enough to get a true feel for its accessibility, the prognosis is positive.
 

If you have any experiences with these or other free CMSs, as it pertains to web accessibility, please feel free to share. I myself have used WordPress (as this blog would indicate!), and soon will be using Drupal and/or Joomla for projects. I’ll delve deeper in a follow-up post later on.

Tags: CMS, Content Management, Drupal, Joomla, WCAG, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WordPress

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 have been in place since 1999. A fairly complex set of guidelines that outline how to make Web content accessibie to those with disabilities, they have by and large been the standard.

No matter how you slice it, 1999 is a long time ago, especially in the Web industry. For the past few years, a 2.0 has been in the works.

On December 11th, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 were made into a W3C Recommendation.

The 2.0 guidelines haven’t been without controversy. Noted accessibility voice Joe Clark, in 2006, posted a strong criticism in his “To Hell with WCAG 2” article at A List Apart. His criticisms were many, and even spawned a group called the WCAG Samurai, which offered their own addendums to WCAG 1.0.

I’m sure to be blogging a lot about 2.0 in future entries. I’ve been carefully studying the admittedly very intensive do’s and don’t that lie within it. Some experts feel WCAG 2 has come a long way since 2006 when it first went out as a proposal; others no doubt remain skeptical.

Regardless, the upgrade to Recommendation status means that we’ll be seeing a lot about WCAG 2 in the months to come.

Related Links:
A New Era for Web Accessibility: WCAG 2.0 is Finalized
Web Accessibility Initiative

Tags: Joe Clark, W3, WCAG, WCAG Samurai, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, World Wide Web Consortium