W3C aims to boost web accessibility

The Accessibility Initiative will allow website developers to make dynamic web content usable to people with disabilities

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has introduced a suite of documents designed to make it easier for website developers to engineer accessible content using technologies including Ajax and Dynamic HTML.

The organisation's Accessibility Initiative (WAI) will allow website developers to make dynamic web content usable to people with disabilities.

The first public working drafts of the Accessible Rich Internet Application suite include the WAI-ARIA Roadmap, WAI-ARIA Roles, and WAI-ARIA States and Properties.

"As people are demanding more information, more responsive applications and richer experiences from the web an explosion in technologies that exclude access to many people is growing," said Rich Schwerdtfeger, IBM Distinguished Engineer and author of the WAI-ARIA Roadmap.

"This new suite of documents is significant because it will help developers gain access to the tools needed to support people with disabilities on the web.

"ARIA is our first step in bringing the richer, dynamic web content experience to all users of the web, by providing technology enhancements and examples for better, more accessible implementations."

Schwerdtfeger explained that assistive technologies, including screen readers, speech dictation software and on-screen keyboards, can help make the web more accessible to people with disabilities.

To accomplish this, these tools require information about the semantics of specific portions of a document in order to present those portions in an accessible form.

For example, to provide reliable access to a form element, a tool must also be able to recognise the state of that element, such as whether it is checked, disabled, focused, collapsed or hidden.

However, websites are increasingly delivering applications with capabilities comparable to locally-installed software.

These rich internet applications make heavy use of scripting, and developers often improvise hybrids of existing technologies, including Ajax, DHTML, JavaScript and SVG.

These applications do not always provide the semantics needed to support these technologies. People with disabilities are therefore at risk of being left out of this new world of information.

The WAI-ARIA Roadmap aims to describe an overall approach for ensuring interoperability between rich internet applications and assistive technologies used by people with disabilities.

W3C explained that the approach relies on technologies already developed or under development, such as the XHTML Role Attribute Module.

"We see a tremendous opportunity for web developers in ARIA," explained Lisa Seeman of UB Access and editor of WAI-ARIA Roles and WAI-ARIA States.

"By providing a system and techniques for making dynamic web content more accessible, we can give content developers what they need to improve the web experience for a broader range of people."