TaylorMade

Today I gave the NICS Editorial Board an update on the consultation document “Delivering Inclusive Websites” stating my support for the position and response from the PSWMG. Later I gave more thought to this as I re-read Jack Pickard’s blog entry on this very same subject.

In his entry Jack rightly raises the issue of the COI going with WCAG 1.0 as their standard. When browsers, assistive technologies and website content have all evolved dramatically since the WCAG was introduced in 1999, why are we still following these standards. Well in the absence of anything else and WCAG 2.0 taking forever, what else is there? I’d really hoped that in the last few years we’d see a website owner taken to court so that at least we could see for definite what the law’s minimum requirements would be rather than making assumptions.

I personally feel that the UK Government needs to step up to the mark here and by Government I mean civil servants. There’s a need to recognise the opportunity for not only meeting demands among developers who care but more importantly citizens who are suffering inaccessible and unusable websites.

As I’ve mentioned before in Northern Ireland we have an audit process which most, new central Government websites must go through. As a result we have a host of sites which by and large are usable and accessible, meeting at least WCAG 1.0, priority 1 checkpoints.

We have our own interpretation of the WCAG, most of which is available online but desperately requires updating. So why haven’t these been updated? Well quite simply resources and priorities. I don’t have the time to revise them and equally such an exercise is not high enough on my long list of things to do. The COI however, obviously have a lot more resources available for such work as their recent consultation document demonstrates but it did little to convince anyone that they are about to put a set of sensible, practical and robust guidelines in place.

Is this because they didn’t know what standard to aim for? Is it worth putting in weeks of work around a set of outdated standards? Or do you wait on WCAG 2.0 then go for the jugular? This is where I sit on the fence. As I mentioned above part of me thinks COI should step up to the mark and do it now. I would be confident that COI with the assistance of the PSWMG could put together a killer document, a reference guide that would even make the old fogeys responsible for WCAG 2.0 sit up and take notice. But would they be leaving themselves open to criticism and perhaps legal action in European courts if WCAG 2.0 is seen as an international legal standard.

All this uncertainty makes life all the more difficult if not demoralising for the developer in the street who just wants to do a good job and ensure the sites he builds don’t present barriers to users.

Constantly I’m asked about a range of issues to which I struggle to find a definitive answer for, should sites be fixed or fluid, is it ok to use PDFs, are images for text ok? For me the only real way we’ll ever be able to make a more definitive call is if substantial, concentrated user testing is carried out, on a wide range of people, with different platforms, ATs, environments etc. I find it hard to believe that no one has undertaken such a task but have yet to find results of any such level of testing.

Surely this is something central Government would welcome and fund? If not, are there other routes, for example charities? I for one am tired of sitting on the fence, I think it’s time we started lobbying for positive action.