Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
One of the most important documents to come from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines were created to help define how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.
- Since it’s release, WCAG 2.0 has become the internationally recognized benchmark for web accessibility.
- The Revised 508 Standards are based on WCAG 2.0.
WCAG 1.0
Focused heavily on the techniques for accomplishing accessibility, especially as related to HTML.
WCAG 2.0 and 2.1
Subsequent versions of WCAG (WCAG 2.0 and 2.1) took a different approach: they focused more heavily on the principles of accessibility. By focusing more on principles rather than techniques, these future versions of the guidelines are more flexible, and encourage developers to think through the process of accessibility conceptually.
WCAG 2.0 is based on four main guiding principles of accessibility. These four principles are known by the acronym POUR (perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust).
The guidelines are an excellent foundation upon which to build accessible content, but unless the developers understand the reasons behind the guidelines, they might apply the guidelines incorrectly or ineffectively.
Another excellent online resources created by the W3C is the WebAIM website (Web Accessibility in Mind) at “http://webaim.org” . Based at Utah State University, it provides information, training, and practical tools for creating accessible content.
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