WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Native or web?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Jan 29, 2019 10:02AM


On 29/01/2019 16:50, Barry Hill wrote:
> As this app is only to be used on IOS devices, could it be that some of the
> WCAG 2.1 guidelines go too far, even for level A? Yes, the new ones under
> 2.1 for mobile will be relevant, but wouldn't the IOS mobile guidelines be
> more useful?

My take: WCAG provides reasonably tech agnostic guidelines and success
criteria. Some of them slant a bit towards traditional web content, but
their high level principle is just as valid for native apps. You can
evaluate a native app against WCAG, but in some cases this will need a
bit more of an interpretation (as some web content concepts may not be
immediately translatable to native - e.g. "Page titled", "Bypass
blocks", "Link purpose (in Context)"). Some are arguably not relevant in
the context of an app (I'd argue "Multiple Ways" would be one of those,
and most native apps would fail this unless they offered essentially two
distinct navigation mechanisms). "Language of Page" / "Language of
Parts" gets tricky to test/check. etc.

So, I'd still evaluate against WCAG 2.1, but be prepared to mark some as
not applicable.

And don't see it as an either/or. Also evaluate against iOS mobile
guidelines etc.

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke