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.