Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
"How to Save Web Accessibility from Itself" is an article by Joe Clark that reveals how some people view the way that the WCAG are set up. He mentions that the guidelines are both "too vague and too specific." He also fears that the new WCAG 2.0 will not remedy the many problems with the first edition of the guidelines. Some of the issues that the new guidelines intend to cover are things such as page structure, CSS, multimedia, writing, usability, information hierarchy, and many disability-specific issues. Mr. Clark also states that although they are a definite improvement on the old ones, the new guidelines "have far too little bearing on the real world of the web."
Some of the problems with any guidelines that are made is that people are different. Some people don't read well, which makes text in a website not nearly as useful to them. Some people don't understand pictures, and would prefer text that spells things out to pictures that help get the point across. There are those who aren't able to see a website, and therefore must use a screenreader, which works best with text, but this again goes against those who don't read well. It is often said that "text is king," but often enough, it is extremely difficult to accommodate all the various users who may want to use your website.
With WCAG 1.0, the guidelines are as follows: Provide equivalent alternatives, don't rely on color alone, use markup and stylesheets, clarify natural language usage, create transformable tables, ensure that new technologies transform as well, provide direct accessibility to interfaces, design for device independence, use interim solutions, use W3C guidelines, provide context and orientation information, use clear navigation, and ensure that documents are clear and simple. Some of these are easier to implement than others, and some are very difficult to get to work together. The best any of us can do is to try our hardest to get all of these guidelines implemented in each website we put together.
The WCAG 2.0 guidelines are similar and cover areas as follows: text alternatives, synchronized media, adaptable, distinguishable, keyboard accessible, enough time, seizures, navigable, readable, predictable, input assistance, and compatible. Some of the guidelines are the same or very close to the originals, but there are a few that have been added. Keyboard accessiblity can be an important one to implement, but it was not included in the first guidelines. Enough time is an interesting one that doesn't apply all the time, only to pages that show some text then move on without the users input. With the compatibility guideline, they want each page to be compatible with both current and future user agents, as well as accommodating assistive technologies. I'm not quite sure how you can have everything work with future guidelines and such, seeing how they aren't known yet, but I guess the best thing to do is to try and determine what might come forth in the future, and plan for it.
The guidelines are important, but requiring everyone to follow them is folly. Not everyone is going to be able to accommodate every user that may come across their page. People should follow these guidelines and make pages available to as many people as possible, but they should not be punished if they aren't able to conform to them all.