WD: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (Call for Wide Review)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1

https://www.w3.org/TR/2017/WD-WCAG21-20170912/

Abstract


Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.

WCAG 2.1 success criteria are written as testable statements that are not technology-specific. Guidance about satisfying the success criteria in specific technologies, as well as general information about interpreting the success criteria, is provided in separate documents. See Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview for an introduction and links to WCAG technical and educational material.

WCAG 2.1 extends Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 [WCAG20], which was published as a W3C Recommendation December 2008. Content that conforms to WCAG 2.1 also conforms to WCAG 2.0, and therefore to policies that reference WCAG 2.0.

Until WCAG 2.1 advances to W3C Recommendation, the current and referenceable document is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 [WCAG20], published as a W3C Recommendation December 2008.

Status of the Document


This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.

This is a Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. This draft includes six new success criteria, an addition in conformance criteria, and some new terms that have been formally accepted by the Working Group. There are now 21 new Success Criteria in WCAG 2.1, which have come from task forces focusing on mobile, cognitive, and low vision user requirements. Changes are listed in the change log.

This draft has all the new Success Criteria that the Working Group plans to add to WCAG 2.1. After this publication, the Working Group will work to optimize the structure of the WCAG 2.1 requirements, via the following tasks: Verify that the new success criteria are clear, implementable, and useful; Identify and resolve conflicts or overlaps between new success criteria, which could result in changing, merging, or removing success criteria; Determine whether to combine new success criteria with existing WCAG 2.0 success criteria that have overlapping scope; Develop Understanding and Techniques content for the new success criteria; Provide supplemental guidance in a separate non-normative publication.

To support this work, the Working Group requests wide review of this draft as soon as possible. The Working Group plans to publish another Working Draft in November that incorporates the above work plus addresses remaining public comments received on this and earlier drafts. Addressing comments will become more difficult at that stage, as the group plans to begin implementation testing with a goal to finalize WCAG 2.1 as a W3C Recommendation by mid 2018, so comments on this draft are critical. For more information on the status of WCAG 2.1 development, see WCAG 2.1 Status.

For this publication, the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group particularly seeks feedback on the following questions: Do the new Success Criteria address current user needs for web content accessibility, particularly for users of touch- and small-screen mobile devices, users with low vision, or users with cognitive or learning disabilities? Does conformance to the new Success Criteria seem achievable and testable? How well do the new Success Criteria fit with the existing Success Criteria from WCAG 2.0?

To comment, file an issue in the W3C WCAG 2.1 GitHub repository. Although the proposed Success Criteria in this document reference issues tracking discussion, the Working Group requests that public comments be filed as new issues, one issue per discrete comment. It is free to create a GitHub account to file issues. If filing issues in GitHub is not feasible, send email to public-agwg-comments@w3.org (comment archive). Comments are requested by 6 October 2017. In-progress updates to the document may be viewed in the publicly visible editors' draft.

This document was published by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group as a Working Draft. This document is intended to become a W3C Recommendation.

Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.

This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.

This document is governed by the 1 March 2017 W3C Process Document.