I have worked in the accessibility industry since 1998 and consulted on the development of the first Level AAA accessible web site in Australia. I ran the accessibility consultancy PurpleTop from 2000 to 2005 and am currently the Manager of Usability and Accessibility Services at Monash University.
Amongst other sites, I have worked as the accessibility consultant for the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games and was responsible for the accessibility compliance of this and associated applications. I also wrote the Victorian eGovernment Resource Centre Web Accessibility Toolkit which I am currently revising.
I was a Member of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group from May 2000 to August 2006 (with two notable absences). I remain actively involved in WCAG2, having recently served on the taskforce dedicated to addressing the cognitive disability formal objection raised by Lisa Seeman (which I cosigned). With other members of the accessibility industry in Australia I also liaise with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission on the status of WCAG2.
I am not and have never been a Member of the WCAG Samurai. I do not represent a company or organisation and have provided this peer review without payment.
Gian Sampson-Wild
June 8, 2007 at 9:08 am
Gian,
Do not feel obligated to post either of my comments here.
Thank you for your forthright clarifications about yourself, impression of WCAG (regardless of number), and your association with the Samurai. I am looking forward to how this all turns out.
I’m curious: The second released draft of WCAG 2 is seemingly not as bad as the first, according to reviews that are starting to appear online. We might even think WCAG 2 will improve even more after this second public feedback period. In that respect, isn’t it a bit premature for samurai to dismiss the final doc on WCAG 2 in favor of errata?
From Summary…
“In publishing these errata the WCAG Samurai aims to provide an alternative to both WCAG1 - which has become obsolete - and WCAG2; whose faults are well-documented.”
“Dismiss” might be too strong of word here, but when one considers such established bodies of literature like Section 508 and similar efforts in other countries, such as AccessiWeb here in France an the new EU EuraCert…won’t boasting errata (by faults of old WCAG) potentially confuse a lot of accessibility effort where it’s finally–finally–starting to sink in at many levels of state? I am all for improvements and clarification, no matter what genre or source, but again, what about WCAG 2 final…there has to still be some hope there, no?
…
Quite sorry mate, I think you’ve already answered my question in “Do we need a WCAG1 errata?” I need to slow down sometimes.
June 9, 2007 at 2:20 am
@Destry, I am glad that I did actually answer your question. The actual requirement of errata is definitely something that I first considered. Having spent so long on the WCAG Working Group it was very difficult for me to come to the conclusion that it is an unworkable set of guidelines. And unfortunately, due to Working Group politics, I am skeptical that they will make the required changes to WCAG2- despite the undoubted improvement of this second draft.
I believe the only hope is that Governments create their own policies and perhaps even their own guidelines. In publishing the errata I believe the WCAG Samurai provide a suitable alternative to WCAG1 and WCAG2.