aloha, sonia!
your question in regards branding a site as accessible (and hence
testable against a standard or specific specification) is a very
germane concern, but lift up the available accessibility-claim
logos, and you will quickly find the source of the problem -- any
accessibility check is inherently subjective; this is why i always
advise content developers/site maintainers to create a reference
page documenting the criteria used by the content developers/maintainers
to ensure the accessibility of their documents, and -- equally as
important -- to state plainly that, since accessibility lies in the eye,
ear, finger-tip or whatever else is available to an individual user,
and since no two users are identical, the site/company/organization
is relying on you (the user) to provide us with feedback as to how to
make this site more accessible and/or identify problems you are
encountering with the site;
accessibility checking requires human thought and judgement, unlike
code validation (although one can create a valid document that is
unusable and inaccessible)... how, for example, is a tool to judge the
"meaningfulness" of the terse descriptor contained in the alt text
assigned for a specific image? an alt text's appropriateness to the
content it accompanies or graphically represents, and the context in
which that image is presented must be assessed by a human.
as for conformance icons:
1. there are WCAG 1.0 compliance icons which are available for
use from http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/) and which come in three
levels:
* Triple-A
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance
* Double-A, and
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AA-Conformance
* Single-A
http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1A-Conformance
Simply stated, if all WCAG 1.0 checkpoints are satisfied, your
site may claim Triple-A compliance (the highest level); your
site may claim Double-A if all Priority 1 and Priority 2
checkpoints have been satisfied; whilst a Single-A compliance
claim means that all of WCAG 1.0's Priority 1 checkpoints have
been satisfied; the following 3 URIs contain links to WCAG 1.0's
explanation of priority levels:
* http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#wc-priority-1
* http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#wc-priority-2
* http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/#wc-priority-3
IMPORTANT CAVEATS:
<q cite="http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1AAA-Conformance">
Claims are not verified by W3C. Content providers are solely
responsible for the use of these logos.
</q>
WCAG compliance is a designation of the author, not an
endorsement or recognition of accessibility by the W3C,
the WAI or the WCAG working group; in order to assist
content developers, WCAG 1.0 contains a checklist of
all WCAG1 checkpoints, which the developer can use to
check the accessibility of their content as measured
against WCAG 1.0; therefore, it is ESSENTIAL to remember
that ANY claim of compliance with WCAG 1.0, is the
judgement of the author (assisted by accessibility and
validity tools, but not all accessibility requirements
can be machine-validated, hence the WCAG 1.0 logos
differ fundamentally from the W3C's validation logos,
which are strictly machine testable;
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG1-Conformance
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/claimcheck
it is also highly desireable for any content creator to
document what has been done to satisfy the requirements
set forth in WCAG 1.0 -- as well as an explanation as to
why the content deviates from WCAG 1.0; it is also always
a good idea to explain how and why implementation decisions
were taken in the construction of the content, especially
for those WCAG checkpoints for which there is no means of
automatically testing (such as "meaningful ALT content",
ensuring that a long descriptor (LONGDESC) actually explains
the content of the image being described, rather than merely
repeating any caption defined for the image (especially as
captions tend to be generic, such as "Camp X-Ray, Cuba,
February 2003" - which labels the image, but does NOT provide
a description of the image
2. there is an activity within the W3C/WAI dedicated to the
creation and requirements for "Evaluation and Repair Tools",
(http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER) -- the working group's site contains
a listing of links to evaluation and repair tools
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut3/ER/existingtools.html
one tool i can heartily endorse comes from the Adaptive
Technology Research Centre at the University of Toronto
(ATRC)
ATRC Web Accessibility Checker:
* http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/index.html
3. there are many organizations which have attempted to define
web content accessibility outside of, or in tandem with,
the development of WCAG 1.0 and 2.0 within the W3C -- the
most popular of such accessibility checkers was known as
"Bobby" and was developed by the CAST organization, but which
(as my use of the past tense suggests) is no longer available;
many individual institutions have promulgated web content
accessibility guidelines for their own web content, mixing
what is described and defined in WCAG1 with other accessibility
"standards", such as the Section 508 rules which govern
requirements for accessibility for tools which are being
considered for use by the united states' federal government
(http://www.section508.gov)
the god-father of WCAG 1.0 are the TRACE Center's Unified Web
Site Accessibility Guidelines:
* http://trace.wisc.edu/redirects/htmlgide/version8.htm
and many other organizations, businesses and governmental
agencies have articulated policies and strategies which set
requirements for web content accessibility:
Policies Relating to Web Accessibility
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/
before ending with a list of recommended resources, i just want
to stress that neither this emessage, nor the following list,
are NOT comprehensive; i just wanted to highlight some of the
issues, options, and points-of-departure (plus, by keeping my
list of resources relatively small, hopefully others will post
other resources
More Recommended Resources:
1. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Overview:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php
2. Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility: Overview:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/Overview.html
3. Developing Organizational Policies on Web Accessibility:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/impl/pol.html
4. Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility\
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/impl/Overview.html
5. Requirements and Changelog for Tranisioning from WCAG 1.0
to WCAG 2.0 Resource Suite
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/changelogs/cl-transition1to2
6. Why Standards Harmonization is Essential to Web Accessibility:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/harmon.html
7. Web Content Accessibility and Mobile Web: Making a Web Site
Accessible Both for People with Disabilities and for Mobile
Devices:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/
8. Improving the Accessibility of Your Site:
* http://www.w3.org/WAI/impl/improving.html
9. Designing More Usable Web Sites
* http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/
10. Web Accessibility Information Links:
* http://trace.wisc.edu/resources/web-resources.php
11. Trace Center Collation of Access Board's 508 FINAL RULE and
GUIDELINES:
* http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/508-collation/06092004v1.1.shtml
12. Working on Accessible Web Content Guidelines and Designing More
Usable Documents:
* http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/navtools2001/index.html
13. The Paciello Group
* http://www.paciellogroup.com/index.php
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You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of
focus. -- Mark Twain
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Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
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