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Web Accessibility Initiative

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The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)'s Web Accessibility Initiative ( WAI ) is an effort to improve the accessibility of the World Wide Web for people with disabilities . People with disabilities encounter difficulties when using computers generally, but also on the Web. Since they often require non-standard devices and browsers , making websites more accessible also benefits a wide range of user agents and devices, including mobile devices, which have limited resources. According to a US government study, 71% of website visitors with disabilities will leave a website that is not accessible.

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58-572: The W3C launched the Web Accessibility Initiative in 1997 with endorsement by The White House and W3C members. It has several working groups and interest groups that work on guidelines, technical reports, educational materials and other documents that relate to the several different components of web accessibility. These components include web content, web browsers and media players, authoring tools, and evaluation tools. WAI develops guidelines and other technical reports through

116-401: A static web page , delivered as it is stored. A server-side dynamic web page is a web page whose construction is controlled by an application server processing server-side scripts. In server-side scripting , parameters determine how the assembly of every new web page proceeds, and including the setting up of more client-side processing. A client-side dynamic web page processes

174-617: A Recommendation on 11 December 2008. WCAG 2.0 is based on very different requirements from WCAG 1.0: The combination of more general applicability and higher precision proved very challenging. In 2018, the WCAG working group published WCAG 2.1. This remains fundamentally similar to the guidance in WCAG 2.0, with some additional recommendations made in particular areas: Developed by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group,

232-517: A W3C Recommendation in 2002. The WAI Interest Group is an open group with a mailing list to which anyone can subscribe. W3C staff post announcements of new WAI documents to this mailing list to invite reviews and comments. Members of the list also post announcements of relevant events and publications, and ask advice on issues related to web accessibility. The language of the mailing list is English; there are no parallel mailing lists in other languages. The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (formerly

290-753: A community of major web players and publishers to establish a MediaWiki wiki that seeks to document open web standards called the WebPlatform and WebPlatform Docs. In January 2013, Beihang University became the Chinese host. In 2022 the W3C WebFonts Working Group won an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for standardizing font technology for custom downloadable fonts and typography for web and TV devices. On 1 January 2023, it reformed as

348-416: A database of tools for evaluating Web sites and for making them more accessible ("repair", "retrofitting"). The working group consists mainly of developers of such tools and researchers. Current work focuses on The Protocols & Formats Working Group reviews all W3C technologies for accessibility before they are published as a recommendation. It has also published a note on accessibility issues of CAPTCHA ,

406-481: A document on Selecting and Using Authoring Tools for Web Accessibility. The Education and Outreach Working Group develops materials for training and education on Web accessibility. This working group has produced documents on a wide range of subjects, including: Currently, the working group has a task force to support the work done in the WAI-AGE project. This project published a document that reviews literature about

464-610: A new edition or level of the recommendation. Additionally, the W3C publishes various kinds of informative notes which are to be used as references. Unlike the Internet Society and other international standards bodies, the W3C does not have a certification program. The W3C has decided, for now, that it is not suitable to start such a program, owing to the risk of creating more drawbacks for the community than benefits. In January 2023, after 28 years of being jointly administered by

522-542: A paper on natural language usage for people with cognitive disabilities, and initial work on accessibility requirements for XML-based markup languages (XML Accessibility Guidelines). In 2006, the working group started development of a set of document and specifications for accessible rich internet applications : WAI-ARIA . The goal of the Research and Development Interest Group is This interest group has seen very little activity since 2004. Its current charter expired at

580-481: A posted HTML form , parameters in the URL , the type of browser being used, the passage of time, or a database or server state . Such web pages are often created with the help of server-side languages such as ASP , ColdFusion , Go , JavaScript , Perl , PHP , Ruby , Python , WebDNA and other languages, by a support server that can run on the same hardware as the web server. These server-side languages often use

638-462: A public-interest 501(c)(3) non-profit organization . W3C develops technical specifications for HTML5 , CSS , SVG , WOFF , the Semantic Web stack , XML , and other technologies. Sometimes, when a specification becomes too large, it is split into independent modules that can mature at their own pace. Subsequent editions of a module or specification are known as levels and are denoted by

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696-597: A set of core principles and components that are chosen by the consortium. It was originally intended that CERN host the European branch of W3C; however, CERN wished to focus on particle physics , not information technology . In April 1995, the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation became the European host of W3C, with Keio University Research Institute at SFC becoming

754-462: A working draft (WD) for review by the community. A WD document is the first form of a standard that is publicly available. Commentary by virtually anyone is accepted, though no promises are made with regard to action on any particular element commented upon. At this stage, the standard document may have significant differences from its final form. As such, anyone who implements WD standards should be ready to significantly modify their implementations as

812-473: Is a companion document that provides guidance on understanding and implementing ATAG 2.0. It gives an explanation of the intent of each success criterion, examples of the success criterion, and additional resources. Implementing ATAG 2.0 recommendations can reduce the costs for accessibility because authors are given the tools they need to create accessible content. List of authoring tools looking to implement ATAG 2.0: Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

870-512: Is a technical specification which became a W3C Recommended Web Standard on 20 March 2014. It allows web pages (or portions of pages) to declare themselves as applications rather than as static documents , by adding role, property, and state information to dynamic web applications. ARIA is intended for use by developers of web applications , web browsers , assistive technologies , and accessibility evaluation tools. World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C )

928-413: Is also used to dynamically create pages on the server that are sent fully formed to clients. MediaWiki , the content management system that powers Misplaced Pages, is an example for an originally server-side dynamic web page, interacted with through form submissions and URL parameters. Throughout time, progressively enhancing extensions such as the visual editor have also added elements that are dynamic on

986-522: Is currently working on a new version of the guidelines. The first public draft of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was published on 12 March 2008. The XAG explains how to include features in XML applications (i.e. markup languages conforming to the XML specification) that promote accessibility. Work on these guidelines stopped in 2002; the guidelines are still a working draft. WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications)

1044-403: Is done by external experts in the W3C's various working groups. The Consortium is governed by its membership. The list of members is available to the public. Members include businesses, nonprofit organizations, universities, governmental entities, and individuals. Membership requirements are transparent except for one requirement: An application for membership must be reviewed and approved by

1102-612: Is generated on the client's computer. The web browser retrieves a page from the server, then processes the code embedded in the page (typically written in JavaScript ) and displays the retrieved page's content to the user. The innerHTML property (or write command) can illustrate the client-side dynamic page generation: two distinct pages, A and B, can be regenerated (by an "event response dynamic") as document.innerHTML = A and document.innerHTML = B ; or "on load dynamic" by document.write(A) and document.write(B) . All of

1160-555: Is now endorsed by the W3C, indicating its readiness for deployment to the public, and encouraging more widespread support among implementors and authors. Recommendations can sometimes be implemented incorrectly, partially, or not at all, but many standards define two or more levels of conformance that developers must follow if they wish to label their product as W3C-compliant. A recommendation may be updated or extended by separately-published, non-technical errata or editor drafts until sufficient substantial edits accumulate for producing

1218-569: Is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web . Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee , the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in the development of standards for the World Wide Web. As of 5 March 2023, W3C had 462 members. W3C also engages in education and outreach, develops software and serves as an open forum for discussion about

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1276-571: Is the version of a standard that has passed the prior two levels. The users of the standard provide input. At this stage, the document is submitted to the W3C Advisory Council for final approval. While this step is important, it rarely causes any significant changes to a standard as it passes to the next phase. This is the most mature stage of development. At this point, the standard has undergone extensive review and testing, under both theoretical and practical conditions. The standard

1334-424: Is then reloaded by the user or by a computer program to change some variable content. The updating information could come from the server, or from changes made to that page's DOM. This may or may not truncate the browsing history or create a saved version to go back to, but a dynamic web page update using AJAX technologies will neither create a page to go back to, nor truncate the web browsing history forward of

1392-618: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) to produce dynamic web pages . These kinds of pages can also use, on the client-side, the first kind (DHTML, etc.). It is difficult to be precise about "dynamic web page beginnings" or chronology because the precise concept makes sense only after the "widespread development of web pages". HTTP has existed since 1989, HTML , publicly standardized since 1996. The web browser's rise in popularity started with Mosaic in 1993. Between 1995 and 1996, multiple dynamic web products were introduced to

1450-402: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) to produce dynamic web pages. Two notable exceptions are ASP.NET , and JSP , which reuse CGI concepts in their APIs but actually dispatch all web requests into a shared virtual machine. The server-side languages are used to embed tags or markers within the source file of the web page on the web server. When a user on a client computer requests that web page,

1508-550: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 's resignation from W3C. As feared by the opponents of EME, as of 2020 , none of the widely used Content Decryption Modules used with EME are available for licensing without a per-browser licensing fee. W3C/ Internet Engineering Task Force standards (over Internet protocol suite ): Client-side scripting A dynamic web page is a web page constructed at runtime (during software execution ), as opposed to

1566-1040: The MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (located in Stata Center ) in the United States, the (in Sophia Antipolis , France), Keio University (in Japan) and Beihang University (in China), the W3C incorporated as a legal entity, becoming a public-interest not-for-profit organization . The W3C has a staff team of 70–80 worldwide as of 2015 . W3C is run by a management team which allocates resources and designs strategy, led by CEO Jeffrey Jaffe (as of March 2010), former CTO of Novell . It also includes an advisory board that supports strategy and legal matters and helps resolve conflicts. The majority of standardization work

1624-560: The ATAG 2.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 24 September 2015. ATAG is a set of guidelines for developers of any kind of authoring tool for Web content: simple HTML editors , tools that export content for use on the Web (for example, word processors that can save as HTML), tools that produce multimedia, content management systems , learning management systems, social media, etc.. The goal is for developers to create tools that: Implementing ATAG 2.0

1682-686: The Asian host in September 1996. Starting in 1997, W3C created regional offices around the world. As of September 2009, it had eighteen World Offices covering Australia, the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and, as of 2016, the United Kingdom and Ireland. In October 2012, W3C convened

1740-453: The W3C started considering adding DRM -specific Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) to HTML5 , which was criticised as being against the openness, interoperability, and vendor neutrality that distinguished websites built using only W3C standards from those requiring proprietary plug-ins like Flash . On 18 September 2017, the W3C published the EME specification as a recommendation, leading to

1798-522: The W3C. Many guidelines and requirements are stated in detail, but there is no final guideline about the process or standards by which membership might be finally approved or denied. The cost of membership is given on a sliding scale, depending on the character of the organization applying and the country in which it is located. Countries are categorized by the World Bank 's most recent grouping by gross national income per capita. In 2012 and 2013,

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1856-538: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group) produces guidelines, techniques and other supporting documents relating to the accessibility of Web content. Web content refers to any information you may find on a Web site: text, images, forms, sound, video, etcetera, regardless whether these were produced on the server side or on the client side (with a client-side scripting language such as JavaScript ). Thus,

1914-836: The Web. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee after he left the European Organization for Nuclear Research ( CERN ) in October 1994. It was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science with support from the European Commission , and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , which had pioneered the ARPANET ,

1972-437: The client and server components that collectively build a dynamic web page are called a web application . Web applications manage user interactions, state, security, and performance. Ajax uses a combination of both client-side scripting and server-side requests. It is a web application development technique for dynamically interchanging content, and it sends requests to the server for data in order to do so. The server returns

2030-425: The client side, while the original dynamic server-side elements such as the classic edit form remain available to be fallen back on ( graceful degradation ) in case of error or incompatibility. A program running on a web server ( server-side scripting ) is used to generate the web content on various web pages, manage user sessions, and control workflow. Server responses may be determined by such conditions as data in

2088-468: The director of the WAI. In this role she has championed improving accessibility of the web for people with disabilities and older users. The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and supporting resources for tools that create web content, ranging from desktop HTML editors to content management systems . The accessibility requirements apply to two types of things:

2146-453: The displayed page. Using AJAX, the end user gets one dynamic page managed as a single page in the web browser while the actual web content rendered on that page can vary. The AJAX engine sits only on the browser requesting parts of its DOM, the DOM, for its client, from an application server. A particular application server could offer a standardized REST style interface to offer services to

2204-619: The end of 2006. The User Agent Accessibility Guideline Working Group develops guidelines, techniques and other documents to promote the accessibility of user agents : browsers and plug-ins . The working group consists mainly of organizations that develop user agents, researchers, and other accessibility experts. UAWG published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0 in December 2015. Supporting documentation includes: UAAG 2.0 Reference and UAAG Mobile Examples. The working group published User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (UAAG 1.0) as

2262-455: The first integer in the title (e.g. CSS3 = Level 3). Subsequent revisions on each level are denoted by an integer following a decimal point (for example, CSS2.1 = Revision 1). The W3C standard formation process is defined within the W3C process document, outlining four maturity levels through which each new standard or recommendation must progress. After enough content has been gathered from 'editor drafts' and discussion, it may be published as

2320-498: The guidelines also apply to rich internet applications . The working group consists of representatives from industry, accessibility consultancies, universities, organizations that represent end users, and other accessibility experts. The working group published the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) as W3C Recommendation in 1999, followed by techniques documents in 2000. In 2001,

2378-469: The market, including Coldfusion , WebObjects , PHP , and Active Server Pages . The introduction of JavaScript (then known as LiveScript) enabled the production of client-side dynamic web pages, with JavaScript code executed in the client's browser. The letter "J" in the term AJAX originally indicated the use of JavaScript, as well as XML . With the rise of server side JavaScript processing, for example, Node.js , originally developed in 2009, JavaScript

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2436-729: The most direct predecessor to the modern Internet . It was located in Technology Square until 2004, when it moved, with the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, to the Stata Center. The organization tries to foster compatibility and agreement among industry members in the adoption of new standards defined by the W3C. Incompatible versions of HTML are offered by different vendors, causing inconsistency in how web pages are displayed. The consortium tries to get all those vendors to implement

2494-407: The needs of older users and compares these needs with those of people with disabilities as already addressed in WAI guidelines. The Education and Outreach Working Group can also review working drafts produced by other WAI working groups. The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group develops technical specifications that support the accessibility evaluation and repair of Web sites. It also maintains

2552-641: The pages on the fly for each request. Client-side scripting is changing interface behaviors within a specific web page in response to input device actions, or at specified timing events. In this case, the dynamic behavior occurs within the presentation . The client-side content is generated on the user's local computer system. Such web pages use presentation technology called rich interfaced pages . Client-side scripting languages like JavaScript or ActionScript , used for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and Flash technologies respectively, are frequently used to orchestrate media types (sound, animations, changing text, etc.) of

2610-532: The presentation. Client-side scripting also allows the use of remote scripting , a technique by which the DHTML page requests additional information from a server, using a hidden frame , XMLHttpRequests , or a Web service . The first public use of JavaScript was in 1995, when the language was implemented in Netscape Navigator 2 , standardized as ECMAScript two years later. The client-side content

2668-431: The presentation. The scripting also allows use of remote scripting , a technique by which the DHTML page requests additional information from a server, using a hidden Frame , XMLHttpRequests , or a web service . Web pages that use server-side scripting are often created with the help of server-side languages such as PHP , Perl , ASP , JSP , ColdFusion and other languages. These server-side languages typically use

2726-508: The requested data which is then processed by a client-side script. This technique can reduce server load time because the client does not request the entire webpage to be regenerated by the server's language parser; only the content that will change is transmitted. Google Maps is an example of a web application that uses Ajax techniques. A web client , such as a web browser, can act as its own server, accessing data from many different servers, such as Gopher, FTP, NNTP (Usenet) and HTTP, to build

2784-877: The same process as other parts of the W3C. Like other W3C initiatives, the WAI consists of several working groups and Special interest groups , each with its own focus. Only working groups can produce technical reports that become W3C recommendations. A working group can sometimes delegate specific work to a task force , which then presents its results back to the working group for approval. Interest groups may produce reports (for example, as W3C Notes), but not recommendations. Each of these types of groups (working group, task force, interest group) can have one or more mailing lists. They meet through conference calls at regular intervals (typically every week or every other week) and sometimes use web-based surveys to collect input or comments from participants. They can also meet face to face (one to five times per year). In 1997 Judy Brewer has been

2842-622: The standard matures. A candidate recommendation is a version of a more mature standard than the WD. At this point, the group responsible for the standard is satisfied that the standard meets its goal. The purpose of the CR is to elicit aid from the development community on how implementable the standard is. The standard document may change further, but significant features are mostly decided at this point. The design of those features can still change due to feedback from implementors. A proposed recommendation

2900-615: The user interface on the one hand, and the content produced by the tool on the other. The working group consists of representatives from organizations that produce authoring tools, researchers, and other accessibility experts. The working group produced the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 in 2000 and completed Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 in 2015. A supporting document, Implementing ATAG 2.0, provides additional explanation, examples and resources for ATAG 2.0. It also published

2958-704: The user requests a web page and simply views the page and the information on that page. However, a web page can also provide a "live", "dynamic", or "interactive" user experience. Content (text, images, form fields, etc.) on a web page can change, in response to different contexts or conditions. There are two ways to create this kind of effect: Web pages that use client-side scripting must use presentation technology broadly called rich interfaced pages . Client-side scripting languages like JavaScript or ActionScript , used for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and Flash technologies respectively, are frequently used to orchestrate media types (sound, animations, changing text, etc.) of

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3016-480: The web application. DHTML is the umbrella term for technologies and methods used to create web pages that are not static web pages , though it has fallen out of common use since the popularization of AJAX, a term which is now itself rarely used. Client-side-scripting, server-side scripting, or a combination of these make for the dynamic web experience in a browser. Classical hypertext navigation, with HTML or XHTML alone, provides "static" content, meaning that

3074-400: The web page using JavaScript running in the browser as it loads. JavaScript can interact with the page via Document Object Model (DOM), to query page state and modify it. Even though a web page can be dynamic on the client-side, it can still be hosted on a static hosting service such as GitHub Pages or Amazon S3 as long as there is not any server-side code included. A dynamic web page

3132-446: The web server interprets these tags or markers to perform actions on the server. For example, the server may be instructed to insert information from a database or information such as the current date. Dynamic web pages are often cached when there are few or no changes expected and the page is anticipated to receive considerable amount of web traffic that would wastefully strain the server and slow down page loading if it had to generate

3190-432: The working group started work on WCAG 2.0, which became a W3C Recommendation on 11 December 2008. The WAI Coordination Group co-ordinates that activities of the WAI working groups (and interest groups). Its activities are not public. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (known as WCAG) were published as a W3C Recommendation on 5 May 1999. A supporting document, Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

3248-481: Was published as a W3C Note on 6 November 2000. WCAG 1.0 is a set of guidelines for making web content more accessible to persons with disabilities. They also help make web content more usable for other devices, including mobile devices (PDAs and cell phones). The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 are recognized as a de facto standard and have served as a basis for legislation and evaluation methodologies in many countries. The WCAG working group published WCAG 2.0 as

3306-468: Was published as a W3C Note on the same day; it provides techniques for satisfying the checkpoints defined in UAAG 1.0. Working group members also produced other supporting documents, including initial notes on How to evaluate a user agent for conformance to UAAG 1.0; this document was not formally approved by the working group. No user agents have been reported as fully conforming to UAAG 1.0. The working group

3364-554: Was published in 2000 by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. Developed by the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, the UAAG 1.0 became a W3C Recommendation on 17 December 2002. The UAAG is a set of guidelines for user agent developers (such as web browsers and media players ) aimed at making the user agent accessible to users with disabilities. Techniques for User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

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