While this article goes on to discuss new accessibility technology in Windows Vista (why?), what should be much more its main point is that in a UN-sponsored study, just three of 100 major websites passed WCAG 1.0!
Frankly, this is an execrable state of affairs. I’ve been building web apps for a long time now, and building accessible apps from the start is just something that I do. It’s never an afterthought. And it never should be. The WCAG Checklist provides an annotated, abundantly clear guide on how it should be done:
- WCAG Priority 1 is without question, absolutely simple to do and absolutely easy to achieve. If you don’t build your apps to at least this standard, you need a good slapping.
- Priority 2 is a little more challenging, but it’s still eminently doable, even if you want to include things like Flex/Flash interfaces. It just takes a little diligence.
- Priority 3? Well, Priority 3 is fairly hard, unless your app is strongly text-based. There probably aren’t too many exciting Priority 3-compliant sites out there. But then, Priority 3 shouldn’t necessarily be your goal.
If you’re unfamiliar with WCAG, I strongly suggest you drop over and take a look. And then, start applying these rules to your work. After all you shouldn’t be excluding visitors from your apps, and further, in many places including Australia, the USA, many parts of Europe (see my earlier post here) and the UK it’s the law.
UPDATE – Ben Forta posted today about accessible Flex 2 development, ultimately leading to Lin Lin’s post which has more links on how to do it than you probably knew existed.
