Silver Accessibility Guidelines Prototype

Silver Accessibility Guidelines does not yet have an official name. It is intended to be the next major version that will replace the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). One of the goals of the Silver Accessibility Guidelines is that it will be written using plain language as much as possible so that people who are not technical can still understand it, and so Silver can more easily be translated into other languages. When it is finished, Silver Accessibility Guidelines will have a lot of ways for making the web and other digital content (like video or mobile apps) more accessible to people with disabilities.

Silver Accessibility Guidelines doesn't have any real content yet. This W3C Community Group Editor's draft shows how the accessibility guidelines could be organized for people who need to see accessibility guidance as a W3C technical report, which is what the W3C calls their official standards. It has silly language (lorem ipsum or pirate ipsum) in it to show where the helpful information will go.

Most people who would like to use the Silver Accessibility Guidelines should follow this link to view the Silver accessibility guidance in a more usable format .

Following these guidelines will make content more accessible to more people with disabilities, but will not address every need for every person with a disability or multiple disabilities.

The first paragraph above this is required information from the W3C that most people do not have to pay close attention to. It is useful for people who work directly with standards.

This document is a First Editor's draft of a W3C Community Group report. This means that this draft is not complete and has a lot of silly language to show where real help with accessibility will go when it is finished. It is written by the combined Silver Community and Silver Task Force of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group of the W3C. Every time the editor's draft is published, it becomes more useful and more complete. This is a first draft, so there is a lot that is not done.

The combined Silver groups plan to publish Silver as a web application that is easy to use and navigate. It is a requirement of the W3C to publish a technical report that meets their rules for what a standards document looks like. The Silver group plans to have the main view of Silver be the web application. This draft is a mockup that shows what the Silver Accessibility Guidelines version that looks like a W3C Technical Report could look like.

The combined Silver Community Group and Silver Task Force plans to write more Editor's Drafts of Silver. The Silver groups will start writing what will go in the Silver Accessibility Guidelines in 2019. They plan for this work to eventually be transferred to a W3C working group to become an W3C Recommendation which is the official name for a W3C standard. There will be a way of viewing the accessibility guidelines for people who work directly with standards.

Most people should use the version of Silver that is designed for usability for designers, developers, project planners, QA testers, and others.

Introduction to the Silver Accessibility Guidelines

This has not been written yet.

How Silver is Organized

This has not been written yet.

How WCAG content has moved to Silver

Explanation - Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

In summary:

Principle -> tags. Since many WCAG success criteria could fit under multiple Principles, this gives us greater flexibility to assign Principles.
Guidelines and technology neutral SC -> Guidelines
Technology specific SC and Techniques -> Methods
Understanding becomes part of the long description of Guidelines or Methods. It will be broken up. Use of Color would go toward a Guideline, but the examples are technology specific and would go to a Method.
Levels (A, AA, AAA) are deleted. Silver levels will be overall for the product/project, not by SC.
SC numbers are deleted. Guidance will be known by a unique handle, so that Silver scales for new guidance.

Guidelines

Guideline Title (unique)

Short description of the guideline - Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

+ (accordion or link to separate document)

Long description of the guideline (tabbed interface with informative information)

Methods

Because the TR document interface is flat document, the Methods will be extracted from the Long Description and listed below

Method 1
Method 2
Method 3

Another Guideline Title

Short description of the guideline
+ (accordion or link to separate document) Long description of the guideline (tabbed interface with informative information)

Methods

Method 1
Method 2

Third Guideline Title

Short description of the guideline
+ (accordion or link to separate document) Long description of the guideline (tabbed interface with informative information)

Methods

Method 1
Method 2
Method 3

Section Headings

Use headings and sub-headings for your text.
Section Headings (Plain Language prototype)

Methods

General: Organizing a page using headings (WCAG 2.1 Technique G141)
HTML: Providing heading elements at the beginning of each section of content (WCAG 2.1 Technique H69)
Usability: Evaluating the usability of headings (new)

Conformance

Editor's Note: Background: A key suggestion originated from a lawyer formerly a part of the US Office of Civil Rights. She suggested that Silver members study the LEED Certification for green buildings for inspiration for a more flexible method to measure overall Silver Conformance. The LEED program uses a point system, that can varies by the type of building (Homes, Commercial, Neighborhoods, etc) and within each type, assigns a level: bronze, silver, gold, platinum. Advantages of this system include:

Greater flexibility to customize conformance to meet evolving needs
Clear communication to the public of the level. (WCAG level A sounds good to people who are not familiar with WCAG, while Bronze level clearly implies that they can do better).
Point system allows prioritization of guidance without assigning the guidance to a level. This gives flexibility to have different priorities for different types of sites, apps, or products.
Allows creating incentives for desireable behavior that goes beyond individual pass/fail tests, such as usability testing and user testing with people with disabilities.

Adapting the LEEDS model to Silver

Silver could look have a conformance model where individual guidance is evaluated by different types of measures, like:

current WCAG pass/fail tests
automated tests
rubrics
distance from a baseline
grading scales
usability tests
testing with people with disabilities
and more (this is not a comprehensive list)

The individual guidance could use the type of test most appropriate for the guidance. The results of the measures are scored by a point scoring system that could be different for different types of sites or apps. The score is then used to determine the level: Bronze, Silver or Gold. Sites that currently meet WCAG 2.x AA could be grandfathered in at Bronze level. Sites that also meet the new content could be Silver level. Sites that go beyond (example: user testing with people with disabilities) could be gold level.

Levels

Bronze Level

Any site, application or product that currently meets WCAG AA would be grandfathered in at Bronze level. Most accessibility testing that can be performed with automated tests would probably fall under bronze level. Existing pass/fail tests associated with WCAG 2.0 success criteria would apply to points under Bronze level. There is a proposal being developed for Meaningful Involvement which would also proposal Methods intended to get more involvement of people with disabilities earlier in a project. It proposes some Methods at Bronze level.

Silver Level

Silver level sites, apps, or products would meet the requirements of Bronze level plus additional points. It was suggested that the Silver level include the new guidance that would be included to address the needs of people with cognitive disabilities, low vision, and other disabilities that are not easily measured with a pass fail test.

Gold Level

This section needs more work. The suggestions were that sites, apps, or products that met Gold Level would meet Silver Level plus they would demonstrate more advanced accessibility measurements such as user testing with people with disabilities.

Platinum Level

This section needs more work. This is an optional level that would demonstrate a organization commitment to accessibility. If it is included, it could be used for organizations that have made a maturity-model commitment to accessibility in the organization that would ensure long-term accessibility for their site, application or product.

Point System (needs a better name)

The details of the point system still need considerable work and development. The general idea is that different point systems could be set up to address specific types of sites, applications, or products. For example, a social media site that is updates thousands of times per second has different conformance needs than a small mostly static website. A site that is oriented for children might have different needs than a e-commerce site. Having different point systems give the flexibility to address those needs.

Concerns to be Solved

The relationship between informative (easily updated and non-binding) and normative (stable and required) text.
How to insure that people don't take the points that are easy to accomplish and use them to score high enough to achieve a level without making the overall site, app, or product accessible. One suggestion is to set up sub categories where people have to score enough in that category. Another suggestion was to start with a high score and subtract points to determine the final score, for example, you get 330 points out of a possible 450 points.
Certification system. Many people were interested and had ideas about certification. While W3C does not have the resources to certify individual sites, it possibly could be interested in certifying companies, who would then be authorized to certify sites. This goes beyond the scope that we are currently addressing, and should be discussed with W3C management.
How to handle the differences between WCAG 2.0 and WCAG 2.1 for grandfathering sites with existing WCAG conformance.
WCAG for young children? Are their needs different? More research input is needed in this area.