- Hi, everybody.
My name's Laura Goslin.
I work in marketing at Deque.
I've asked my good friend and colleague, Glenda,
to help walk me through some of the updates
and what to expect for WCAG 2.1.
Glenda, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
- Awesome.
My name is Glenda "The Goodwitch" Sims,
and I work at Deque,
where I lead a fantastic group of accessibility experts,
and I'm also currently on
the W3C's Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
helping to craft the next version of WCAG, WCAG 2.1.
- What do you think, Glenda,
what do you think WCAG 2.1 will cover?
What's a high-level overview of what to expect?
- I think the first thing that we need to remind people
is that WCAG 2.1 is
an effort to fill known gaps within WCAG 2.0,
and that WCAG 2.0 is still fully in play.
The known gaps, the major areas of known gaps
are in low vision
and mobile and cognitive.
Why is this so?
Because WCAG 2.0 was published in 2008,
and I don't know if you remember
what your mobile device looked like back then,
but a lot of us didn't have these big-screen devices.
A lot of things have changed in mobile,
so it makes sense that we didn't have that covered.
Low-vision and cognitive,
while they have a little bit in WCAG 2.0,
there are some significant barriers that still exist
that we need to meet for both of those disability types.
Those are the primary areas of focus in WCAG 2.1.
- What's the timeline I can expect
for WCAG 2.1 moving forward?
- Just to let you know
how much work has gone into WCAG 2.1,
research for WCAG 2.1 probably goes back
even as far as 2008.
We're picking up things that didn't make
into WCAG 2.0,
so lots of research for a long time
and extremely active work has been going on for WCAG 2.1
since January of 2017.
We've had a draft release of the guidelines
almost every month since January 2017.
As we approach fall,
our latest draft was published on September 19th, 2017,
so that's the draft that's out there right now.
I'm anticipating two more drafts.
November 15th is likely to be
the last working draft,
because I'm expecting in mid-December
a candidate recommendation.
A candidate recommendation actually is still a draft,
but it's a much more stable draft.
So, Mid-December for a
final-final draft.
As early as summer of 2018,
this WCAG 2.1 standard
could become an international standard
and recommendation.
While people always wonder,
"Deadlines, are you meeting 'em,"
I will tell you that since January of 2017,
WCAG 2.1 has been on time and on schedule.
I really anticipate we could have this new standard
finalized and published in summer of 2018.
- Great.
Knowing this timeline, does it make sense
for someone like me to start using WCAG 2.1?
- Great question.
What I would suggest is,
it depends on how you're coming at it.
If you're trying to apply it in a,
"Oh my gosh, I have to meet this legal requirement,"
then not quite yet.
I would definitely wait until after
the December candidate recommendation gets published,
because it's gonna be stable and almost finalized.
But the other perspective is,
every single one of these items
that are even in the September release of the draft
are already best practices for accessibility.
If you care about accessibility
and you're trying to make accessible websites,
you can begin to apply
these principles and criteria immediately.
The other thing to keep in mind is,
if you wanna have an impact on what WCAG 2.1 looks like,
what it includes and what it doesn't include,
go read it right now,
because the acceptance of public comments
at some point will close as they start to finalize it.
You don't have a lot more time.
Real critical if you want to have an impact
on making changes.
- Is WCAG 2.1 backward-compatible
to the WCAG 2.0 that I currently know?
- It absolutely is.
There's no conflict between the two.
That was one of the requirements as we wrote it.
They really are complementary,
and so you can go ahead and apply WCAG 2.0,
and then you would add 2.1 on top of that.
They are additional requirements.
- Will WCAG 2.1 continue using
the A, the double-A and the triple-A standards from 2.0?
- Yes, because it's complementary to WCAG 2.0,
it uses that same structure.
The A, double-A, triple-A
model is still in place.
What you're already familiar with
will just have additional SC that fall in line
at the WCAG 2.1 level.
- If I want to contribute to this working draft,
what are some requirements
for writing good success criteria for WCAG 2.1?
- You know, it's funny, up until 2017,
I had never tried to write a success criterion.
I had only used them, applied them, and tested for them,
or taught to them.
Writing one of these is so hard.
It's the kind of thing that we have to recognize
that to write a good standard
that could become an international legal requirement,
it must be
something that human beings can test reliably.
It has to
be implementable.
It has to be possible to meet the criterion.
We also wanna make sure
that each one of these success criterion
are technology-agnostic,
because today,
while we may talk about HTML and native mobile apps
and digital documents,
who knows what kind of digital wonders are in our future?
We need to stay up at a level that we call a condition.
We need to document the success criterion requirement
as a condition,
and not loop it in too tightly to HTML
or a native mobile language,
so that it, too, will stand the test of time.
The other thing that we consider without a doubt is
there's three pulls on this.
It is, what are the accessibility needs
of people with disabilities,
and what's technically possible
to do today,
and also, what is reasonable?
We have to look at the cost benefit of doing it.
So, really high bar in writing these,
and while it's the hardest work I think I've ever done,
it's also been the most intellectually stimulating.
- That's good to hear.
Besides you, who is writing this WCAG 2.1?
- You know, some of the best brains in the world
are involved in this.
What's super exciting to me is that the W3C
is a completely open and transparent organization.
From the get-go,
WCAG 2.1 has been written in a way
that you could publicly watch it.
All the minutes of all the meetings are public.
Every draft is public.
All our comments and questions to each other, all public,
to the point that WCAG 2.1
is being created out on GitHub,
and you can go to that location,
read it,
and make comments yourself.
So, who's involved in creating this?
A number of people who have been involved
in creating accessibility in the past,
but also, wide-open doors to developers,
designers, people with disabilities, lawyers, you name it.
Everybody's welcome.
- If I was curious about how
this WCAG 2.1 was being made.
Would I be able to watch that process?
- Yes, you definitely can.
There is
a process in place
that the W3C has
made very
clear lines of how something moves from
an idea into a working draft,
into a candidate recommendation,
into a formal, "This is final."
That process is documented out at the W3C.
Everything is published as we move along.
So, completely open.
The only piece that's not completely open
is actual, if you were to attend,
there are, right now, twice-weekly phone calls
where about, I don't know,
probably about 80 people are invited.
Those are not open.
The minutes from them are open.
You can't attend those
without being an official member of the working group.
- Got it, okay.
My last question is,
what's the W3's process for publishing
these quality technical requirements?
- The absolute requirements are,
there must be a first public working draft
that is available for wide review,
early and wide review.
It's not appropriate for us to be creating
an international standard and say,
"Mm, I'm gonna publish the working draft on Thursday
"and we'll finalize it on Friday."
Uh-uh.
This thing will have been out there over a year and a half,
so that people really have that opportunity
to give feedback, review it, think on it,
see if it's implementable.
And then, between the first public working draft
and what we call a candidate recommendation,
there can be as many public working drafts as needed.
There may be
none.
You can have a first public working draft
and you can go straight to,
"We think this is ready for an official vote."
But in this case,
we will have had,
I don't know, over five working drafts
that have been out there for review
before we go to candidate recommendation.
After candidate recommendation,
that's a very formal stage,
and I'm expecting that in mid-December
we will have a formal vote
within the membership of the W3C,
is this ready
to be
considered
for full recommendation?
So, a very formal vote will take place,
and then there will still be a time period
for public comment.
Between candidate recommendation and the final,
which could be as early as summer of 2018,
there can still be changes,
but it should be stable enough that those changes are minor.
- Great.
Well, thank you so much for helping me
dissect the process around WCAG 2.1 and what to expect.
I really appreciate it, Glenda.
- You bet, Laura.
Looking forward to more conversation.