1. Web Accessibility: Will WCAG 2.0 Better Meet Today’s Challenges? Experiences Of WCAG 1.0 Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath UK

2. Contents Introduction What's Happening? Survey of UK University Home Pages Reports From Other Sectors Typical Problems Conclusions

3. UK University Home Pages In Sept 2003 survey of accessibility of 160+ UK University entry points carried out Used Bobby (to report on problems which an automated tool could spot) How many WAI AA pages were found? The survey found: Only four entry points complied with AA One was a JavaScripted page so isn't accessible The UK HE community is generally aware of and supportive of WAI issues, uses email lists to discuss issues and share solutions (esp. in light of legislation introduced in Sept 2002). So why this low figure? What's Happening? See

4. Scottish Political Parties Survey of the accessibility of 8 parties standing in May 2003 Scottish Parliamentary elections carried out (by David & Martin Sloan) Four parties' home page failed Cynthia Says test and manual testing found that all have accessibility problems across the Web sites: missing ALT tags, contrasts, graphical navigation, poorly implemented frames, non-compliant HTML, PDF files, … A number of political parties pledged support for accessibility, the Web sites had been developed for the election and had a high profile. So why the poor findings? What's Happening? See

5. RNIB Web Site Bobby was used on 7 May 2003 to test the RNIB home page at Two priority 2 errors were found Is the RNIB home page really inaccessible? What's Happening? Similar findings have been reported for other high-profile accessibility organisations

6. The Context One University Web manager, following survey publication, said: "I too have been struggling with just how rigorously the WAI guidelines should be implemented … I certainly aspire to comply as full as I can with the WAI guidelines but …" Some guidelines are too theoretical I will have a pragmatic approach: Will use tables for positioning Will not associate form controls for search boxes Will not necessarily nest headers correctly … Concerns These are seen as WAI requirements. Are they?

7. Specific Problems Typical problems reported by Bobby's automated testing: Missing ALT text Missing DOCTYPEs Use of absolute positioning Repeated link phrases The justifications for these requirements is well-known They could be fixed easily for an entry point But: What about workflow issues What about tools used today Are there usability issues? Concerns

8. MS Office Case Study A typical organisation (including universities): Has significant investment in Microsoft Office products Has conservative users who typically won't appreciate new tools being forced on them) In MS Word / PowerPoint: How many users will know how to add ALT text to images? How many would use this option if they knew about it? Typical Problems If PowerPoint presentations are held on the Web primarily for file delivery with little expectation of use by others should (a) effort be spend on ALT tags, (b) do as at present or (c) remove files from Web site?

9. Using A Text Editor Many experienced Web authors / software developers may use a text editor in preference to a HTML authoring tool (I use HTML-kit) This should be more usable these days (just create simple HTML elements, and leave formatting to a CSS file) But: Isn't it too difficult to maintain ids for cell elements in complex tables Isn't it worse to get ids wrong than not have them? Should the WAI guidelines be explicit on this point? How will users of text editors react? Should the WAI guidelines be explicit on this point? How will users of text editors react? Typical Problems

10. Large Web Sites A typical university Web site: Has devolved authorship Uses a wide range of technologies, applications, etc.) Has hundreds of thousands of Web resources Differing perceptions: Web teams would like to install centralised Content Management Systems to help apply consistent best practices Users typically don't like central service departments and want to manage their own resources, use their own favourite applications, etc. Typical Problems

11. WAI Compliance Levels Is it unreasonable to regard: WAI A = Good effort WAI AA = Even better WAI AAA = Top of the class But: Is this really the case? Aren't some of the AA and AAA requirements based on assumptions of how the Web will be in the future? Typical Problems

12. Too Theoretical? Are some WAI guidelines too theoretical? Typical Problems 13.2Provide metadata to add semantic information to pages and sites. [Priority 2] For example, use RDF ([RDF]) to indicate the document's author, the type of content, etc. Some questions How many use RDF today? Isn't RDF an unproven technology which is currently of research interest? Isn't this using WAI as a mechanism to promote a favoured W3C format? If I can't / won't do this, will other Priority 2 requirements be ignored?

13. Too Theoretical? Have some WAI techniques not being used sufficiently to expect widespread use? But longdescr not supported in widely used browsers There is little implementation experience: Should the file be text, HTML, … (it's not defined) How will the information be rendered? Should I provide navigation to the original document? What about the management of the content? If it's not widely used, can we implement a better solution (e.g. based on XLink) 1.1Provide a text equivalent for every non-text element (e.g., via "alt", "longdesc", or … Typical Problems

14. Best Practices Or Today's Practices? Does WAI: Act as an evangelist for emerging W3C technologies? Assume that the W3C philosophy is true ("by following these guidelines content developers can create pages that degrade gracefully …") Address real world concerns in an environment of broken browsers, commercially driven interests, proprietary formats, … XML CSS SMIL SVG RDF XML CSS SMIL SVG RDF G6Ensure that pages are accessible even when newer technologies.. not supported If I use SMIL, how do I dumb things down to HTML? Typical Problems

15. Cost Of Web Accessibility But doesn't: #2 ignores the workflow issues #2 ignores the documented costs of providing and maintaining metadata (an ALT tag is metadata) #3 ignores the real world difficulties of, say, deploying CSS MYTH #2: Accessible Web authoring is expensive and time-consuming MYTH #3: Web accessibility is too difficult for the average web designer http://aware.hwg.org/why/myths.html#m2 Wouldn't it be better to be open about the costs in order to gain acceptance? We don't pretend that safety in cars, providing fire safety in building, etc. is cheap. Typical Problems It is acknowledged that this is not from WAI

16. Cost Of Web Accessibility Diveintoaccessibility.org provides valuable advice on making Web sites accessible. But look at what it describes: 1.First, we're defining an absolute size (12px) for every. All browsers apply this style … 2.Then we include the odd-looking comment "/*/*/". Due to bugs in Netscape 4, everything between this comment and the following one will be ignored. That's right, all the following styles will only be applied in non-Netscape-4 browsers. 3.Immediately after the odd-looking comment, we include an empty rule "a {}". Opera 5 for Mac is buggy and ignores this rule (and only this rule). It applies everything else. p {font-size: 12px;} /*/*/a{} body p {font-size: x-small; voice-family: "\"}\""; voice-family: inherit; font-size: small;} html>body p {font-size: small;} /* */ …

17. Conclusions To conclude: Public sector bodies who want to provide accessible Web sites seem to find it difficult to do so, even on individual high-profile pages The WCAG 1.0 guidelines appear to promote little- deployed emerging W3C technologies It appears to be difficult / expensive to produce richly functional & accessible e-learning resources Or is this taking the WAI WCAG guidelines too literally? Don't the guidelines do a good enough job in the majority of cases, and to highlight exceptional cases or esoteric aspects is to undermine the valuable work that WAI is doing (and provide a loophole for avoidance)?