Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Who Is Responsible for Accessibility?

Generally speaking, there are four “groups” of people responsible for accessibility. These include:

Web designers

That’s right, us: the people who design, program, and build web sites. Using the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG ) we can make informed decisions as to how to make sites accessible.

Browser, screen reader, and other user agent manufacturers

This group is responsible for ensuring the accessibility of their tools for using the Web. The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) help browser manufacturers build their tools so that they can leverage the good content that developers produce.

Software vendors

Playing a critical role in accessibility, this group creates the tools that developers, designers, and authors use to create web content. This group looks at the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) when they are building their software.

Users

People with disabilities are not without some responsibility. It is quite reasonable that we expect people using assistive technology to know how to use it properly and efficiently.

So if we as developers, designers, and authors are partly responsible, how do we go about living up to those responsibilities to make our web sites accessible? First, we start with an understanding of what we’re trying to achieve, and then we apply that to the way we build our sites. Fortunately, we are guided by the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0).