Web Design in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0)

At the time of this writing, the W3C’s Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 was entering its final stages of approval.

WCAG 2.0 revolves around four basic principles for web accessibility:

• Content must be perceivable.

• User interface components in the content must be operable.

• Content and controls must be understandable.

• Content must be robust enough to work with current and future technologies.

This is not a radical departure from WCAG 1.0, and the same general principles apply. In many ways, it is a reorganization to make the full gamut of accessibility guidelines more understandable. Further, WCAG 2.0 attempts to provide better guidance to web content authors by eliminating some of the ambiguity in WCAG 1.0. For a comparison of WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0, see http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2005/06/30-mapping.html.

Keep in mind, however, that the WCAG 2.0 Working Draft is subject to revision based on review and public comment.