WCAG 2.0 And Testability
I’ve just been reading Gian Sampson-Wild‘s article Testability Costs Too Much on A List Apart,=. she has raised an issue regarding the impact of testability upon the decision to include, or omit, some success criteria. It certainly makes for slightly disturbing reading.
I’ve had some vague feelings on unease about WCAG2.0 for a while now. Whilst I was able to highlight some issues in the earlier draft and there are signs of an improvement in the current draft, I’ve still been unsure about the overall approach for reasons I couldn’t specify. Having read what Gian has to say, I think she’s hit the proverbial nail.
JAWS Video
Victor Tsaran is an accessibility engineer at Yahoo! who focuses on developing best practices for the creation of websites that work well with screen readers. In this video, he provides an introduction to some of the things that work well in the world of screen readers and others that fare more poorly.
If you haven’t seen a screen reader being used, I strongly recommend that you take the time out to watch this video (duration: 27:23). It will help explain why issues such as list markup and correct use of header elements is so important when developing an accessible web site.
WCAG Samurai Peer Review: Part 2
Further to my previous post, I’m continuing to read through Gian Sampson-Wild‘s technical review of the WCAG Samurai Errata. This time, I thought I’d look at the issues facing users with cognitive disabilities.
Like Gian, I’m also a little disappointed that WCAG Samurai didn’t seize this opportunity to correct some of the oustanding problems with WCAG 1.0 as it relates (or doesn’t) to users with cognitive disabilities. That said, I acknowledge that a bit of short-term tinkering is woefully inadequate if we want to address the needs of these, largely overlooked, users properly. But I think we can make a start now if we then follow it up with a full scale investigation later on. One potential benefit would be raising the profile of these users sooner rather than later. If we can get designers to start thinking about users’ needs, so much the better.
WCAG Samurai Peer Review: Part 1
I’ve been reading through Gian Sampson-Wild‘s technical review of the WCAG Samurai Errata and she seems to have picked up on most of the points that I noticed but is perhaps over-critical in other areas. In this post, I’ll confine myself to looking Gian’s comments under Accessible Technologies.
WCAG Samurai Errata Released
The long-awaited WCAG Samurai Errata draft has now been published. Well, I’ve been waiting for it for some time and rushed off to read it immediately.
In the main, it’s excellent. It corrects many of the initial problems within WCAG 1.0 and some of the issues that have arisen because the guidelines now lag so far behind current technology. The approach is practical and pragmatic. The language is clear and simple. It calls a spade “a spade” and not “a horticulturalist’s earth re-positioning tool”. However, there were some points that either suprised or disappointed me.