WCAG 2.0 Became The Official Recommendation

The World Wide Web Consortium announced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 to be the new official recommendation.

After long years of work, the new set of guidelines allows more applicability to current and future technologies. In addition, WCAG 2.0 with its new structure makes it easier to follow, and provides much more guidance.

WCAG 1.0 has been used since 1999. Technology has changed a lot since then, new accessibility guidelines are necessary, and some old ones are not applicable. WCAG 2.0 addresses this requirement. The new guidelines are definitely easier to understand, but the document structure is much more complex. Within this complexity, many technical recommendations can be found, and the number of these are growing. While the guidelines will remain steady, recommendations on meeting the guidelines will be added.

According to previous feedback, it should not take a huge effort in average to meet the WCAG 2.0 guidelines for those who meet the WCAG 1.0 ones.

What does this mean in practice?

Some legislations, such as certain states in the US, and other countries use WCAG 1.0 as their accessibility criteria. These legislations will have to be updated to WCAG 2.0 before it will be binding. However, it is strongly recommended to start the transitioning now. It will not only save future work, but will also enhance web accessibility.

Read the official press release