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Philippine Web Accessibility Group

A Philippine Initiative to UN Web Accessibility Design Compliance

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PWAG Web Design Accessibility Recommendation (WDAR) Checkpoints

Summary

This document has been produced as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative of the Philippines through the Philippine Web Accessibility Group. The bases of this document came from the following activities and actions:

  1. Series of discussions from among the members of the Accessibleweb Yahoo Group from September 2006 to January 2007;
  2. Existing checkpoint criteria used by the National Computer Center Team in monitoring the Manila ICT Design Recommendations compliance of web sites of the participants who attended the three ICT Web Accessibility Workshops;
  3. Series of meetings of the PWAG core group members and concerned Persons with Disabilities sector together with the representatives of the National Computer Center (NCC) and the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) held in three separate venues;
  4. Design compliance of the four web sites that received the "Disabled Friendly Web Site Awards" given by NCC and NCDA;
  5. Universal adoption of the Manila ICT Design Recommendations formulated during the Interregional Seminar and Regional Demonstration Workshop on Accessible Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) and Persons with Disabilities held in Manila, Philippines from March 3 - 7, 2003 attended by thirteen countries from Asia and the Pacific.

This document is only intended to be used as a guide for web content developers from the Philippines, “.ph” code domain named web sites, web developers from the government and Filipino web designers.

Maturity Stages

This term was coined during one of the meetings held between PWAG members and the NCC Team. Each stage indicates a higher degree of maturity in complying with the web design recommendations. Two stages of maturity were formed. These are:

[MATURITY STAGE 1]

A web content developer MUST satisfy this stage. Passing this checkpoint is the BASIC requirement in order for the web documents to become accessible. The Manila Accessible ICT Design Recommendations form this stage.

[MATURITY STAGE 2]

A web content developer SHOULD satisfy this stage. Passing this checkpoint will remove considerable barriers in accessing web documents. The PWAG Web Accessibility Design Recommendations form this stage.


Maturity Stage 1 (MS 1) Checkpoints

MS 1-1 Provide an Access Instruction page for visitors explaining the accessibility features of the web site. Put an e-mail hyperlink for visitors to communicate web page accessibility problems.

MS 1-2 Avoid using words such as "This" or "Click Here" in creating links. Use descriptive hyperlinks to support text browsers.

MS 1-3 Attach ALT(alternative) text to graphic images so that assistive computer technology such as screen readers can reach the content.

MS 1-4 Provide a "D" hyperlink to a page providing descriptive text of photographs that contribute meaningful content to the page.

MS 1-5 Provide text transcriptions or descriptions for all audio and video clips.

MS 1-6 Provide alternative mechanisms for online forms such as e-mail or voice/TTY phone numbers since forms are not supported by all browsers.

MS 1-7 Avoid access barriers like: PDF files with no equivalent HTML or ASCII files, non-linear page formats, frame formats and content that requires user to download software to access it.

Maturity Stage 2 (MS 2) Checkpoints

MS 2-1 For ALT texts:

    MS 2-1-1 Decorative images must contain null ALT text or ALT="".

    MS 2-1-2 Anchor elements within the Image Maps must contain ALT texts.

    MS 2-1-3 ALT texts that have more than 80 characters long must instead be changed to "D" hyperlink.

MS 2-2 Provide a Site Map with a link appearing on every page.

MS 2-3 All pages must provide a link back to the home page.

MS 2-4 Use Access keys in creating shortcuts to important links and form controls.

MS 2-5 Provide a "Skip to Content" link in every page.

MS 2-6 Make the language that you use in your web site easy to understand.

MS 2-7 Do not use blinking, rolling or scrolling markup tags on your web pages.

MS 2-8 Provide a LABEL text and ALT text on the input elements of your forms.

MS 2-9 Avoid using the FONT SIZE markup in your web pages or change the size to relative units.

MS 2-10 Provide a Search form within your site.

MS 2-11 Layout must be navigable even if the page style is turned off.

MS 2-12 Website content must appear clearly even when colors are turned off.

View the Comparison between the PWAG Web Design Accessibility Recommendations (WDAR) with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).


Copyright©2006-2007 Philippine Web Accessibility Group. All Rights Reserved. Email: info at pwag dot org