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Thread: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)
From: Sam S
Date: Tue, Dec 08 2009 12:21PM
Subject: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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Hello,
I would like to know that if it is necessary to meet the entire WCAG 2.0
success criterion for achieving WCAG 2.0 Compliance. Is WCAG 2.0 flexible as
per the needs of the disabled users accessing the content?
Consider an example where in an organization the disabled employees who need
accessibility are only blind users, that is screen reader users and
currently, there are no other disabled users. The organization website meets
all the WCAG 2.0 requirements for screen reader accessibility, and so is
accessible to all employees.
If so, is it still necessary to say for example, provide transcripts for
audio content for hearing impaired persons even if currently there is no one
who needs this feature?
I do not mean to say that accessibility is important only for screen reader
users. I also understand that providing transcripts for audio can be useful
to all users, but is it still *mandatory* for WCAG 2.0 Compliance in such a
case?
I just want to know if we can implement accessibility and achieve WCAG 2.0
compliance (at least Level 1) on basis on user requirement. This is
especially for internal or non public websites where the developers have
knowledge of the users accessing the website or application and provide only
those accessibility features which are needed or are important.
Thanks,
Sam
From: Don Mauck
Date: Tue, Dec 08 2009 1:06PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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I'll give you my perspective. I believe that pages should always be designed and tested as though the next person that walks through that door or uses that page might be someone with a different disability than what you already have. The key is that the next person that needs this page might be that next great employee that you might let slip away if your pages can't deal with their disability. I know it's a challenge to cover all things but a page should do the very best it can to give all persons' with disabilities a chance to just maybe land that job because the pages are accessible. That's just my take.
From: Geof Collis
Date: Tue, Dec 08 2009 1:09PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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Hi Sam
What happens if in the future you hire someone with a different
disability? Will it be costly to retrofit? Will you even be able or
have to start from scratch?
cheers
Geof
From: Julie Romanowski
Date: Tue, Dec 08 2009 1:15PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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We can't predict the future, and organizations can't know what their
employees' future needs will be. What we can do is design our sites and
web applications with accessibility in mind.
It's important to note that screen reader accessibility does not
guarantee the site is accessible to all users. What about those with
limited vision or color blindness? How about speech-recognition or
keyboard-only users? How about the older employee who now needs hearing
aids? That video transcript Sam seems reluctant to provide might come in
handy for the employee who just can't quite make out what the person in
the video is saying.
WCAG 2.0 A compliance isn't that difficult, and AA compliance isn't much
harder. And updating the intranet sites are much less expensive than the
potential lawsuit that may occur if an employee can't access a required
web application because of accessibility issues.
From: Moore,Michael (DARS)
Date: Tue, Dec 08 2009 2:27PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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Sam S asked.
If so, is it still necessary to say for example, provide transcripts for
audio content for hearing impaired persons even if currently there is no one
who needs this feature?
Mike responds.
If you are in the US the answer lies in Title 1 of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based upon disability in employment. By failing to comply fully with the accessibility requirements for people with all disabilities then you are potentially creating a barrier to employment for people with disabilities. Does your place of employment include accessible parking, entrance ramps, and accessible rest rooms? Are there strobe indicators for the fire alarm system? Each of these items provides access for employees with disabilities other than blindness.
Mike Moore
From: Margit Link-Rodrigue
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 10:33AM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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You have to ask yourself what you are trying to achieve. If you want to meet
legal requirements as defined in Section 508, then you have to meet all
success criteria for WCAG 2.0, including 1.1.1 which refers to audio content
and is a Level A requirement.
If you simply want to comply with some company rules and processes (e.g.
CMMI), then your company has to clearly state in your supporting
documentation that you are currently striving for partial compliance and
what your timeline is to achieve full compliance.
It is unethical, in my opinion, if you are trying to award yourself a
compliance seal if you leave out potential future employees/Intranet users
that are hearing impaired. Intranet or not doesn't matter, because the
location of the file is a temporary aspect and the lines between
Intranet/Extranet/Internet usually get blurrier the larger a company grows.
Thanks,
Margit
From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 10:45AM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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The WCAG 2.0 success criteria are for WCAG 2.0, not Section 508. There is overlap, but if you want to meet Section 508 you do not necessarily need to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria.
Thanks,
AWK
Andrew Kirkpatrick
Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems
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From: Evans, Donald (Contractor)
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 10:51AM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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As a side note, the partial conformance claim in WCAG 2.0 was not intended to give you an easy out. It was intended to address the issue of content that is beyond your control. So if you have produced a video and don't want to caption it, that's not a reason to use the partial conformance claim.
An example where you might be able to use it: You want to join the Amazon affiliate program and sell books on your web site. Amazon gives you a piece of code that is an iframe. Amazon delivers the content to your page. The Amazon ad has a picture of a book and the book does not have an ALT attribute. You can do nothing to add the ALT so you could claim a partial conformance.
---don
From: Margit Link-Rodrigue
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 11:00AM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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Sorry about the confusion. When I say Section 508, I mean the spirit of the
law which clearly strives to make Information Technology accessible to all.
I understand that the actual verbiage in the law relates only to federal and
federally funded agencies, and also that WCAG 2.0 wasn't around when Section
508 took effect, and that Section 508 standards were mapped to certain WCAG
1.0 checkpoints.
However, Section 508 is often quoted in a broader sense, and I still think
to meet Section 508 in 2009 means meeting WCAG 2.0 success criteria.
Everything else would be thinking backwards The web is much more complex
than it was in 1998.
Margit
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Andrew Kirkpatrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:
> The WCAG 2.0 success criteria are for WCAG 2.0, not Section 508. There is
> overlap, but if you want to meet Section 508 you do not necessarily need to
> meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria.
>
> Thanks,
> AWK
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
> Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
>
> Adobe Systems
>
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
>
>
>
From: Sam S
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 11:24AM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or non public websites
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Hello all,
Thank you four your feedback. I completely agree with all of you that
all accessibility requirements should be implemented with equal
importance.
I had asked this query as sometimes, companies which are in the early
stages of accessibility implementation prefer to start by implementing
only critical accessibility features based on requirements. In such a
case I wanted to know what level of compliance a website can claim.
When any website/ organization wants to impalement accessibility it
may happen in a phased manner with the critical issues addressed
first.
The case of providing transcripts for audio was just given as an
example to convey my question.
Thanks,
Sam.
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 11:03 PM, Margit Link-Rodrigue < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> You have to ask yourself what you are trying to achieve. If you want to meet
> legal requirements as defined in Section 508, then you have to meet all
> success criteria for WCAG 2.0, including 1.1.1 which refers to audio content
> and is a Level A requirement.
>
> If you simply want to comply with some company rules and processes (e.g.
> CMMI), then your company has to clearly state in your supporting
> documentation that you are currently striving for partial compliance and
> what your timeline is to achieve full compliance.
>
> It is unethical, in my opinion, if you are trying to award yourself a
> compliance seal if you leave out potential future employees/Intranet users
> that are hearing impaired. Intranet or not doesn't matter, because the
> location of the file is a temporary aspect and the lines between
> Intranet/Extranet/Internet usually get blurrier the larger a company grows.
>
> Thanks,
> Margit
>
From: Cliff Tyllick
Date: Wed, Dec 09 2009 3:39PM
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.0 Compliance criteria for internal or nonpublic websites
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At 12:24 PM December 9, Sam S = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = explained:
I had asked this query as sometimes, companies which are in the early
stages of accessibility implementation prefer to start by implementing
only critical accessibility features based on requirements. In such a
case I wanted to know what level of compliance a website can claim.
Cliff answers:
Sam, it all depends on what the company has chosen to consider its "critical accessibility features." You would have to evaluate the resulting state of the website against WCAG 2.0 (or Section 508, if that is your standard) to determine level of compliance.
Having said that, I hope you understand a point that many of us on this list hope you are getting. That is, it's better to focus on how much accessibility you can achieve than how little accessibility you can get away with.
For example, let's imagine that a client's website is completely inaccessible -- no heading tags, no alt text on images, lists made to look like lists without using the right tags, the whole bit.
Trying to cut costs, the client might be tempted to identify just one thing to fix in the first pass. In this case, they might decide to fix the headings and leave everything else alone. Perhaps that would be less work. But would it really cost less? Probably not.
At some point, someone will want to edit a list. If the list were coded properly, that would be easy. But with the improper coding, a whole Web page might collapse as they try to revise that one critical item. Or someone might like an image -- a photo, perhaps -- and want to reuse it elsewhere. But the photo doesn't have enough identifying information to let them know if it really fits in the new setting. If the original photo had had good alt text, that might not be a problem.
Obviously, this is a highly oversimplified example. But the simple truth is that the value of accessible content is so much greater, and the costs of maintaining that content so much smaller, that it's foolish to start out by asking, "How little is enough?"
The right questions to ask all begin with "If we did this the right way ... ." And they end with questions like these:
1. What would we end up with?
2. How would having that help us, other than achieving compliance?
3. What would the logical steps from here to there be?
4. How much of that investment can we afford to make now?
Get them to think of the big picture. Don't let them be penny wise and pound foolish.
Cliff Tyllick
Usability specialist and Web development coordinator
Agency Communications Division
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
512-239-4516
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =