- From: Marie-Claire Forgue <mcf@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:16:06 +0200
- To: w3c-news@w3.org
W3C Invites Developers to Implement WCAG 2.0
WAI's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Advances to Candidate
Recommendation
_________________________________________________________
Contact Americas, Australia --
Ian Jacobs, <ij@w3.org>, +1.718.260.9447 or +1.617.253.2613
Contact Europe, Africa and the Middle East --
Marie-Claire Forgue, <mcf@w3.org>, +33.492.38.75.94
Contact Asia --
Yasuyuki Hirakawa <chibao@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
_________________________________________________________
http://www.w3.org/ -- 30 April 2008 -- 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.
About the World Wide Web Consortium [W3C]
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium
where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work
together to develop Web standards. W3C primarily pursues its mission
through the creation of Web standards and guidelines designed to
ensure long-term growth for the Web. Over 400 organizations are
Members of the Consortium. W3C is jointly run by the MIT
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MIT CSAIL)
in the USA, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and
Mathematics (ERCIM) headquartered in France and Keio University
in Japan, and has additional Offices worldwide. For more
information see http://www.w3.org/
About the Web Accessibility Initiative [WAI]
W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) works with
organizations around the world, pursuing Web accessibility by
ensuring that core technologies of the Web support accessibility;
developing guidelines for Web content, user agents, and authoring
tools; facilitating development of evaluation and repair tools for
accessibility; conducting education and outreach; and coordinating
with research and development that can affect future accessibility
of the Web. WAI is supported in part by the U.S. Department of
Education; European Commission's Information Society Technologies
Programme; IBM; Microsoft Corporation; SAP; and Wells Fargo.
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Received on Wednesday, 30 April 2008 15:15:48 UTC