As the W3C makes its last call for input on the WAI-ARIA working draft, people often ask why WAI-ARIA was created, how it relates to WCAG 2.0 and why it’s so important. This post will look at the history of WAI-AIRA, and why it can make such a big difference to the accessibility of the Internet.
Why is WAI-ARIA so important?
When the W3C first created the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), its aim was to make sure that people with disabilities could access online content. This was achieved in 1999 with the creation of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0), giving developers specific information on how to create HTML code in an accessible way.
Initially this worked well as in the 1990s a website was often viewed as something that was created once, put online and, aside from a few tweaks, generally left alone. Over time however, Internet users wanted more information and quickly.
As the public’s appetite for real-time information such as the latest stock prices or sports scores grew, developers and the W3C found new ways to produce content. Client-side technologies like JavaScript and Ajax allowed developers not just to display a web page, but control which parts of a page are viewed, how often information is refreshed and what type of content is delivered to the end user. In today’s Web, pure HTML only represents a small part of the end-user experience.
The problem for people with disabilities is that while these technologies are impressive in terms of speed and content, they’re not generally very accessible, especially for screen readers. The updated WCAG 2.0 released in 2008 assisted in providing general guidance on the issues, but unlike WCAG 1.0, the guidelines aimed to be more technology-neutral so they could apply to more situations.
As a result, the W3C created a guide specifically for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) so that developers can make use of the latest cutting-edge web technologies and make sure that people using assistive technology products are able to access the content.
What makes WAI-ARIA so different?
Unlike traditional accessibility guidelines which focus on design principles, WAI-ARIA uses various commands and metadata to tell the assistive technology products what’s going on. For example, if an event happens on a web page such as an updated sports score, the assistive technology program being used to help a person with a disability will notice the change and provides the user with access to the new content.
WAI-ARIA is different in that it allows a partnership of sorts between the developer and the end user in delivering new information. In addition, WAI-ARIA doesn’t have to help with dramatic changes: even just being able to expand a menu and seeing the new options can make a profound difference to accessibility.
In the next post I’ll go into more detail about the specifics, the promise and the pitfalls of WAI-ARIA as there’s a lot to cover on this topic. In the meantime, the W3C have produced a great WAI-ARIA Primer to assist developers in making a start.
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