Website Accessibility Report 4
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Guideline 11. Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
W3C technologies come with built in accessibility features so using such technology will automatically
increase how accessible a website is. The specifications given in W3C are reviewed and chosen by a
consensus so that they are clear and helpful. Some of the technologies are listed at
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CORE-TECHS/
#access-reviewed.
The latest versions of W3C technologies should be used when available and appropriate for your site (1).
Many elements of W3C have been deprecated by more recent updates, and therefore it is best to be sure
to not use those deprecated elements, but to use styles to do the same thing as those deprecated
elements (2). Users are able to override CSS styles on their own, and can therefore make a site
more accessible to themselves if styles are used. Content should be able to be received by users
in different ways, according to their choice: cascading style sheets, access to alternative versions
of content, or different media types (3). If it is not possible to produce a webpage that is accessible,
then an alternative page needs to be made available that has the same content and is updated as often
as the main page (4).
Some current W3C technologies that should be implemented in a website are HTML (or XHTML), MathML, RDF, SMIL, CSS, XLST, and PNG (1). Be sure to use the most recent of each of these technologies, because some are updated and therefore older versions are deprecated. A list of HTML elements and attributes that are commonly used can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-HTML-TECHS/#html-index(2). Make sure you include links to other versions of your content so as to make it more accessible to more people: translated versions of your site, markup language, and content requested by your audience (3). If creating an accessible page is not possible (as in a page using Shockwave player or a pdf file), then there needs to be an alternative page that contains the same content in a different form (such as normal HTML with styles that can be manipulated by users). If this is done, however, it needs to be made sure that the content on the alternative page is updated as often as the main page, for "An out-of-date page may be as frustrating as one that is inaccessible."