Call for Review: Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

Dear WAI Interest Group Participants:

A new Working Draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 
2.0) was published 24 June 2003 and is available for your review. WCAG 2.0 
addresses accessibility of Web content for people with disabilities. It 
will apply to a wider range of Web technologies than WCAG 1.0 and is 
intended to be understandable to a wider audience.

Since the previous public Working Draft of WCAG 2.0, published on 29 April 
2003, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG), 
chaired by Gregg Vanderheiden and Jason White, has incorporated comments 
received and further developed the guidelines and checkpoints in WCAG 2.0.

W3C Working Drafts provide opportunities for public comment during the 
development of a specification. The earlier in the development process 
comments are received, the greater impact they may have. The WCAG WG
invites you to comment on their latest Working Draft, available at:
     http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-WCAG20-20030624/
Send comments to the public comments mailing list by 10 September 2003:
     public-comments-wcag20@w3.org

The Working Group received many helpful comments on the previous draft and 
is interested in more comments on the following questions. These questions 
are similar to those published with the previous Working Draft and are 
intended to encourage general discussion and review of the Working Draft.

          1.  In general, is this WCAG 2.0 Working Draft easy to understand?
               Please identify sections or phrases that are difficult to 
understand.
               Please suggest alternative wording for the Working Group to 
consider.

          2.  The conformance structure of this WCAG 2.0 Working Draft differs
                from WCAG 1.0 and from the previous WCAG 2.0 Working Draft.
                Is the concept of Core and Extended checkpoints easy to 
understand?
                Is this an effective structure?

          3.  If your site or organization already uses WCAG 1.0, do you
               think it will be difficult to migrate from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 
2.0, based on
               the current draft? Please note that the Working Group is 
developing
               supporting documents such as technology-specific techniques 
documents
               and checklists for WCAG 2.0.

Please send your comments by 10 September 2003 to:
          public-comments-wcag20@w3.org
The archive for that mailing list is available at:
          http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/

We would also like to bring your attention to "Requirements for WCAG 2.0" 
which explains the Working Group's goals for WCAG 2.0 based on feedback 
from WCAG 1.0, including improving the usability, understandability, and 
applicability of the guidelines. It is available at:
        http://www.w3.org/TR/wcag2-req/

When sending comments, please:
          - State the issue as clearly and simply as possible.
          - Provide links to specific examples or references.
          - If possible, suggest solutions.
          - Remember that the Working Group welcomes volunteers
             to help with the work.

When waiting for responses to comments:
         - Track your issue in the open issues list
           http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/condensedreports/wcag2_issues.php
         - Follow up on the mailing list if you don't find your issue in the
           open issues list.

Please let us know if you have any questions. Many thanks in advance for 
your comments. Additional information on the Working Group is available at:
          http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/

Note:
We expect WCAG 2.0 to become a W3C Recommendation sometime in 2004. Until 
then, WCAG 1.0 will continue to be the current and stable document to use. 
If your site currently conforms to WCAG 1.0, be assured that conformance to 
WCAG 2.0 will not require a complete redesign of your site but it will 
likely require some tweaks.

Note:
This message may be circulated to other lists, avoiding cross-postings 
where possible.

Wendy Chisholm
W3C Team Contact for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
and
Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative, W3C


-- 
Judy Brewer    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 31 July 2003 09:14:32 UTC