The first version of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG 1.0) were published first in 1999 by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C). No final update has been published in the
intervening eight years, but the W3C has told OUT-LAW Radio that a
final draft will be ready in a few months, and the finalised
version 2.0 of the guidelines is expected in 2008.
"I expect that another last call working draft will come out in
the coming months then how long it progresses after that really
depends on the community," said Shawn Henry, outreach co-ordinator
with the W3C body behind the guidelines, the Web Accessibility
Initiative. "I hope we're close and I hope that the community
realises that. I think there is a very real possibility that this
is it and we'll be able to move forward from here."
Henry said that after the release of the last call working
draft, the final WCAG processes could take just a few months. "I
think there is a good chance it will be published in 2008," she
said.
The delay has partly been caused by the processes used to
produce WCAG. Henry said that its producers have to respond in some
way to every comment or criticism made about the guidelines through
its formal processes.
"With each working draft we typically get hundreds of comments,
so it's really impossible to say when it will be done because it
depends on how many comments we get each time," said Henry.
One of WCAG's fiercest critics, though, said that the guidelines
could face a stiff challenge when they are published because the
web world has moved on so far since the first version was
published.
"WCAG 2 will have a more limited audience. There are competing
standards," said Joe Clark, a web accessibility consultant who
criticised earlier drafts of WCAG 2. "There is the revamp of the
Section 508 [of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973] regs, there is the
European standard for accessibility, and there is the Japanese
standard nobody ever talks about."
Henry said that the W3C was working closely with these other
standards bodies to ensure that all of the new standards work with
WCAG. "I think it is likely that there will be greater
harmonisation with those standards and WCAG 2.0," she said. Henry
added that these other standards are still being developed.
Clark also said that the popularity of interactivity in websites
that has gone under the banner Web 2.0 has also had its effect on
the world of standards. He said that these more complex sites
demand better computer code, which in itself is more
accessible.
"All the cool kids already know about web accessibility and they
just automatically make reasonably or very accessible websites as a
matter of course," said Clark. "They never look at WCAG anything,
they never look at any of the guidelines. We are living really in a
post-guideline era. All the standardistas already know what they
have to do, and some trivial or even some significant rewording of
WCAG is never going to affect them because they are never going to
crack these things open."
Despite the criticisms it has faced over the long delay and
complicated language of earlier drafts, Henry said that the passing
years have seen the internet become a place that is more accessible
to people with disabilities.
"Basic awareness is hugely different over the last 10 years,"
she said. "But there is still a long way to go."
