We need to talk about WCAG.
In this post, I am asking the accessibility community for help. Help for site owners, developers, designers and content managers all over the world. Complying with accessibility guidelines is hard because they are so inscrutable.
One concern is that the specifications and documentation online are inaccessible, unreadable, duplicated, confusing , unnecessarily overcomplicated and cluttered.
Another concern is the addition of new Success Criteria before the existing ones have been properly understood, documented and implemented.
I describe what I encounter “in the field”, as an accessibility expert, auditor, reviewer, developer and researcher. I want to pinpoint the issues and make some recommendations.
The conclusion: Make the W3C specifications and documentation accessible to web creators, unambiguous and easier to maintain. Provide training and example material using modern web development techniques, keep all this in one place and well maintained. Stop adding new Success Criteria before the most recent ones have been properly documented, explained and better adopted into websites worldwide.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are a valuable and an essential tool for improving and safeguarding web accessibility worldwide. By using the Success Criteria we can check and report issues, and help developers, content managers and designers to improve their work.
