WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: WCAG 2.0 'accessibility supported'

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Feb 6, 2009 11:05AM

We are still assessing our position on this, and at some point we will
produce a position paper. My current opinion is that "accessibility
supported" is a misconceived idea, and it undermines all the good work that
has been done with regard to "progressive enhancement".

The way WCAG 2 is written, "accessibility supported" is cop-out. It makes
the unreasonable expectation that users will be able to realise there is a
problem to solve, research it then procure and implement the solution. There
is not a hope in hell that the vast majority of people will be able to do
this.

If it were not for the commercial pressure to work to WCAG 2 we would
definitely stick to version 1 because it results in websites that are more
accessible. Sadly WCAG 2 has been written for the benefit of developers, not
for the end users.

Steve