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Re: How Web Developers use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

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From: carmen.strode@aciworldwide.com
Date: Oct 10, 2008 7:40AM

1. What is your main interest in regard to the web e.g. Web Developer,
Software Developer, IT Procurement et cetera (Please write your answer in
the space provided)

Interaction Designer/ UI architect.



2. What version of WCAG do you use?
a) WCAG 1.0
b) WCAG 2.0
c) Both
d) Don't use WCAG (state why.......................)

A mix of WCAG 1.0, 2.0 and Sec 508 but concentrating on WCAG 2.0



3. How do you refer to WCAG?
a) Carry details in my head
b) Refer to printed copy
c) Refer to online copy
d) Ask someone else

Online copy



4. Do you find WCAG easy to navigate?
a) No problems
c) Could be improved

(c) (Where is b)? )



5. If you think it could be improved, how might it be improved?
a) Better navigation
b) Search facility
c) Reorganized
d) Other (specify.............)

(WCAG 2.0)
Have a one in all version as at the moment I am forever navigation from
Techniques to Understanding to actual guideline.



6. What do you like most about WCAG? (write in the space provided &specify
the version in question)

The "Understanding" section (WCAG 2.0)



7. What don't you like about WCAG (write in the space provided &specify
the version in question)

Techniques section seems to repeat the Understanding section. I would
expect here concrete example of implementation. For example, in case of
required fields markers : marker positioning, label alignment stuff like
that. More specific.



8. Please provide any other comments you may have (please write in the
space provided)

It would make my work so much easier (promoting WCAG in the company with a
large number of UIs) if the guidelines are accompanied by statistics. I
know it is hard but I think WAI should concentrate some efforts in
actually investigating and telling us in details why do guidelines matter.
This would help us in prioritising the guideline implementation depending
on the user profile/disability and at used. at the moment saying stuff
like "some screen readers do not display abbr" without saying which ones
does not help. gets reactions of "so why bother". i would like to answer
because "jaws 9 does and our customers can purchase it". we design mostly
intranet web applications.

of course if designing for a public facing web app where you cannot rely
on knowing the at would make these statistics likely to be abused but i
think they would help people that actually are trying to make a
difference. little by little.

thank you.

can you please let me know when the results of this survey are published?

Carmen Strode | Interaction Designer, Technical Steering Group | ACI
Worldwide Inc.
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"Rehema Baguma" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
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10-Oct-2008 12:38 PM
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Subject
[WebAIM] How Web Developers use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines






Hello,

We are proposing an approach for filtering accessibility guidelines such
as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) according to different
contexts e.g. type of disability, content/navigation/user interface, stage
of development, etc. but first wish to find out how developers use the
WCAG guidelines.The aim of the proposed approach is to make the guidelines
easier to use for Web developers.

We would like your quick views on how you use WCAG by answering the
following questions. There are only 8 questions and it should be possible
to answer them in less than 5 minutes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. What is your main interest in regard to the web e.g. Web
Developer, Software Developer, IT Procurement et cetera (Please write your
answer in the space provided)





2. What version of WCAG do you use?

(a) WCAG 1.0

(b) WCAG 2.0

(c) Both

(d) Don't use WCAG (state why.......................)





3. How do you refer to WCAG?

a) Carry details in my head

b) Refer to printed copy

c) Refer to online copy

d) Ask someone else





4. Do you find WCAG easy to navigate?

a) No problems

c) Could be improved





5. If you think it could be improved, how might it be improved?

a) Better navigation

b) Search facility

c) Reorganized

d) Other (specify.............)





6. What do you like most about WCAG? (write in the space provided
&specify the version in question)







7. What don't you like about WCAG (write in the space provided
&specify the version in question)









8. Please provide any other comments you may have (please write in
the space provided)











Thank you. Please send completed questionnaire to both
<EMAIL REMOVED> , <EMAIL REMOVED>



Background:

Accessibility Guidelines:

Accessibility guidelines are intended for use by those involved in the
procurement and development of information technology products and
services. So far, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) is the
most recognized set of accessibility guidelines. The WCAG have formed the
basis of Web accessibility policy of many organizations across the world
e.g. in UK and USA, are referred to in court cases concerning
accessibility and are used as evaluation criteria by most automated
evaluation tools (Mline et al. 2005; Sloan et al. 2005).



However reports such as Donnelly and Magennis (2005) and Asakawa (2005)
show that many members of the target audience still find WCAG difficult to
use which results into products with in-built accessibility barriers. One
of the main reasons given is difficulty in understanding or interpreting
the guidelines (Donnelly and Magennis, 2005). E.g. WCAG 1.0 has been
criticized for being difficult for much of its potential audience to
understand. Consequently, the new version (WCAG 2.0) has been drafted with
a provision for understanding by a wider, less technical audience, less
ambiguous and technology neutral (Kleihm, 2006). However the yet in draft
WCAG 2.0, has also been criticized for being 'overlong', unreadable and
impossible to understand (Clarke, 2007, Kleihm, 2006). Some have
recommended continuing with WCAG 1.0, notwithstanding corrections, given
that it remains adequate for most Web sites (Clark, 2007). We hope that
approaches such as the proposed one can improve the usa
bility of the WCAG guidelines.






About the Author: My name is Rehema Baguma, a PhD student at Makerere
University, Uganda. My research area is web accessibility focusing on
usability of accessibility guidelines so that they can be more useful to
developers to address both technical and human aspects of accessibility

Supervisors: Dr. Jude T. Lubega, Makerere University, Faculty of Computing
& IT, Uganda

Dr. Roger Stone, Loughborough University, Department of Computer
Science, UK



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Rehema Baguma,
Department of Information Systems,
Faculty of Computing & IT,
Makerere University, Uganda.

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event. It is a habit.
" - Aristotle