Overview of the activities in the WAB Cluster
Accessibility for people with disabilities offers the best of both worlds, social responsability and a good return on investment (EV)
WAB Cluster activities
The image above describes the activities of the WAB Cluster where the three projects are shown as three oval forms that have an overlap in the middle representing the mutual work on harmonization of evaluation and benchmarking. All work is done in coordination with W3C/WAI and most of the work is open to public comments. The deliverables produced within the framework of the cluster will be placed online on this website for comments.
The common topic is the cevelopment of a EU-harmonised assessment methodology for Web accessibility, based on W3C/WAI and to be synchronised with the foreseen migration from WCAG1.0 to WCAG2.0.
The three project-specific (although inter-related) topics are:
- Preparation of a platform for a possible observatory (measurement machine with modular tests, site inventory for jurisdictions [e.g. Member State, Region, type of public or private sites], results management - including to report to policy makers -, based on the EIAO proposal. The platform prototype, once sufficiently advanced, will provide a facility for testing some of the aspects of the common assessment methodology. Involvement of relevant Member States administrations, disabled user organisations and existing web directories might help for the inventory part, with involvement roles to be however clarified. Experience from statistics bodies, which have experience of complex and heterogeneous cases, might be also of assistance and measurement of evolution over time is also to be solved.
- Investigation of a possible Web accessibility quality marking (proposal of a certification mechanism and authority as a follow-up to the Euro-Accessibility initiative, national helpdesks, training material), based on the Support-EAM proposal. Possibility of self-certification should also be considered. Relevant EU or national standardisation body might be able to provide assistance and would have to be involved in the mark, with coordination with WAI whenever possible.
- Complementary developments: test suites for evaluation tools, evaluation modules for checkpoints difficult to automatise (colour contrast and blindness, navigation consistency, natural language complexity and changes), based on the BenToWeb proposal. Integration in CMS and dynamic multi-version web-pages issues will also be investigated, and partners in BenToWeb involved in the development of test tools will also consider integrating these modules.
Clustering, initiated right from the negotiation stage, will ensure that evaluation tools and methods developed both for global monitoring and for local evaluation, are compatible and coherent among themselves (and with WAI), and also that a strong European feedback and contribution is provided to WAI for future guidelines or versions of guidelines. All material produced in view of being proposed for standardisation has to be public and will be prepared as such within the projects. Modules developed will have to be usable for local assessment tools and also for the monitoring observatory platform.
