NICS - Guidelines for accessibility
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the body responsible for setting Internet and Web standards. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is part of the W3C and is responsible for promoting and supporting accessibility.
WAI guidelines and priorities
WAI provide documents and resources to assist with improvements in accessibility. The guideline document that applies to the production of web pages is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0). This comprises 14 guidelines split into 65 separate checkpoints. The checkpoints are classified into 3 priority levels according to their impact on accessibility:
| Priority 1 | A Web content developer must satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint is a basic requirement for some groups to be able to use Web documents. |
| Priority 2 | A Web content developer should satisfy this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will remove significant barriers to accessing Web documents. |
| Priority 3 | A Web content developer may address this checkpoint. Otherwise, one or more groups will find it somewhat difficult to access information in the document. Satisfying this checkpoint will improve access to Web documents. |
WAI conformance levels
Implementing the checkpoints confers different accessibility conformance levels depending on the priorities passed. Achieving a conformance level entitles the site to display a WAI conformance icon.
| Checkpoints passed | Conformance level | Entitled to display |
|---|---|---|
| All priority 1 | Single-A (WAI-A) |  |
| All priority 1 and 2 | Double-A (WAI-AA) |  |
| All checkpoints (1,2 and 3) | Triple-A (WAI-AAA) |  |
A way to think about conformance levels
Imagine a library with an access ramp (see library analogy).
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