Stanford Online Accessibility Program

Web Accessibility Standards and Guidelines - An Overview

When developing web content, there are a number of different Standards and Guidelines that can be referenced. An overview follows:

W3C WCAG

The W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is and has been the lead on emerging internet recommendations and guidelines. The W3C however goes to some length to differentiate them selves as not being a Standards body but rather one which issues "recommendations". They do work closely with organizations such as the ISO, however they do not publish Standards, nor do their recommendations and guidelines read as standards.

In the field of Web Accessibility, the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative has been active since the late 1990's. WAI, in coordination with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the Web through five primary areas of work: technology, guidelines, tools, education and outreach, and research and development. In May of 1999, the WAI issued their first Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (or WCAG) which is structured into three levels of severity or Priority, and then presents a collection of guidelines or checkpoints based on the checkpoint's impact on accessibility.

Interestingly, with few exceptions, existing legislation, when advocating any web content standards, reference this document, even though it is not a standards document. Many of the existing checkpoints within the document are subjective in nature and open to individual interpretation. None-the-less, striving for websites that meet at least the Priority 1 and 2 Guidelines has been cited in numerous legislations where measurable results are required.

For more information see: www.w3c.org/WAI

Section 508

Recognizing the subjective limitations of some of the W3C Guidelines, the US government has written their own Web Accessibility requirements. In practicality, they are almost the same as the Priority one Checkpoints found in the W3C Guidelines, with some clarifications in terms of measurability, and the addition of a few items that are unique to their document.

Section 508 requires that U.S. Federal agencies' electronic and information technology is accessible to people with disabilities. Other requirements within Section 508 also have the net effect of requiring that vendors seeking to do business with the U.S. Federal Government must also ensure their web sites and software tools meet accessibility requirements. While Section 508 stops short of placing an obligation on the operators of private sector web sites, it is the buying power of Federal Government that makes many private companies decide to comply with the terms of 508 - because compliance may help them to win federal work. Using the "carrot" of Federal spending dollars, the U.S, government rewards companies that meet their guidelines. As a result, numerous software tools used to create web sites are now empowered to create sites which will be "Section 508" compliant. As well, large companies seeking to conduct business with the Federal government also ensure their web sites are compliant.

There are also provisions within the legislation that essentially ensures that web content funded by or through public tax dollars must meet the same requirements, including all levels of governance from federal to municipal, as well as other institutions funded through public funds.

For more information see: www.section508.gov

IBM Web accessibility checklist

IBM has long committed themselves to creating accessible web content and provide a wealth of information on their website: www-306.ibm.com/able/index.html . They have published their own internal Accessibility Development Checklist which they apply to all of the web content they produce. It closely mirrors the W3C Guidelines and Section 508 Standard requirements.

Unless indicated otherwise, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.