Accessibility vs. WCAG2
Automated disclaimer: This post was written more than 15 years ago and I may not have looked at it since.
Older posts may not align with who I am today and how I would think or write, and may have been written in reaction to a cultural context that no longer applies. Some of my high school or college posts are just embarrassing. However, I have left them public because I believe in keeping old web pages alive—and it's interesting to see how I've changed.
WCAG2 is, I believe, a blow against both accessiblity and web standards. Joe Clark writes his review of the draft guidelines in a recent ALA article -- more of a scathing burn than a report, really. And I would tend to agree.
Quite simply, the new guidelines, as the stand now in draft form, are impossible or impractical to follow in any realistic environment. They create obstacles for "normal" readers, actively dismiss web standards, restrict creative design, and obfuscate the basic principles of accessiblity (allowing everyone to access content in a reasonable manner). The guidelines are unclear, ambiguous, vague, and dense. Dense in that bad way, not just in that information-rich way.
In my next redesign, I think I'll use my common sense instead, thank you very much.
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