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W3C Invites Developers to Implement WCAG 2.0

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02.05.2008

WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Advances to Candidate Recommendation

Today, W3C announces that the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 is ready for developers and designers to test in Web content and Web applications. Publication of WCAG 2.0 as a Candidate Recommendation, a major step in the W3C standards process, signals broad consensus in the WCAG Working Group and among public reviewers on the technical content of the document.

"The community is eager for WCAG 2.0 to become a final W3C Recommendation, and this takes us one step closer," said Loretta Guarino Reid, Co-Chair of the WCAG Working Group. "Advancing WCAG 2.0 to Candidate Recommendation provides a stable document that developers can use for trial implementations in their Web sites."

WCAG 2.0 Meets Today's Needs

WCAG addresses accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities and many elderly users, and is one of three Web accessibility guidelines produced by W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). WCAG 2.0 provides a stable foundation for accessibility of Web content and Web applications, and supporting documents enable it to be used flexibly across the broad range of Web technologies and environments in today's Web. WCAG 2.0 is designed to be easier to use than WCAG 1.0, and is more precisely testable, using a combination of automated testing and human evaluation.

WCAG 2.0 Incorporates Extensive Community Feedback

"WCAG 2.0 has been developed with extensive community input," said Gregg Vanderheiden, Co-Chair of the WCAG Working Group, and Director of the Trace R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We've worked very hard, including publishing twelve Working Drafts and addressing more than 3000 comments, in order to ensure that WCAG 2.0 meets the need for an updated international standard with which national and local Web accessibility guidelines can harmonize."

WCAG Working Group Seeks Diverse Implementations of WCAG 2.0

The Working Group seeks feedback from implemention experience of WCAG 2.0 in diverse types of Web sites and Web applications by 30 June 2008. A comprehensive suite of supporting documents is available to help implementors, and includes How to Meet WCAG 2.0, which allows developers and designers to build a customized view of WCAG 2.0 requirements; Understanding WCAG 2.0; Techniques for WCAG 2.0; an Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents; a WCAG 2.0 FAQ; and Comparison between WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 to support transitions to WCAG 2.0.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/CR-WCAG20-20080430/

Marie-Claire Forgue | Source: alphagalileo
Further information: www.w3.org/2008/04/wcag20cr-pressrelease.html.en

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