Although the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) were developed in 1999 primarily to help ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded from the communication revolution, these guidelines could have easily been developed by an award presenter wishing to promote teaching and learning for the widest audience possible. For that reason we have included recognition to those who take the time and effort to incorporate many of the fourteen features outlined below.
Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content
Do not rely on color along
Use markup and style sheets and do so properly
Clarify natural language usage
Create tables that transform gracefully
Ensure that pages featuring new technology transform gracefully
Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes
Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces
Design for device independence
Use interim solutions
Use W3C technologies and guidelines
Provide context and orientation information
Provide clear navigation mechanisms
Ensure that documents are clear and simple
Each checkpoint has a priority level assigned by the Working Group based on the checkpoint's impact on accessibility and are known as Priority 1, Priority 2 and Priority 3.
Within these three priority levels are sixty-five checkpoints and thirty-eight or over one half of these checkpoints, could be considered as addressing general usability issues for all or some people regardless of ability. To put this in simple terms - web accessibility is for all of us.
Everyone benefits from improved usability, but some groups benefit more from certain aspects than others. In addition to older visitors, non-English speaking users, mobile users and those who do not have access to broadband or other high speed internet access methods, which are the vast majority of world internet users.
Copyright: 1986-2010