Wikka Accessibility
Attaining Accessibility conformance
WikkaWiki currently features valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and valid CSS.We should try to understand whether Wikka is compliant with any of the following Accessibility Conformance levels:
If it's already the case (which I doubt), we should add this accessibility conformance to the list of our features∞.
If it's not, we should try to see what changes are needed to attain the highest possible level.
--DarTar
How to get there
Thanks for bringing this up, DarTar.No, it's not.
But any system that generates HTML based on end-user input would have a very hard time to attain full WCAG 1.0∞ AAA-level compliance for its output. The first requirement for accessibility is valid (X)HTML - but most HTML is generated based on Wikka markup: how do we ensure that results in valid XHTML? A simple nesting error in the Wikka markup could result in the same nesting error in XHTML. Worse, we allow people to embed HTML - how are we going to ensure the embedded HTML is valid (let alone conforms to the stated document type in the DOCTYPE declaration)? One option might be to run all code through HTMLtidy but even that has its limitations.
It would probably be better to distinguish between Wikka's user interface itself (or at least the default version out of the box) and how Wikka deals with user input to generate page content. Any system that generates HTML should not only conform to WCAG 1.0∞ (if the system is implemented in HTML) but also ATAG 1.0∞ (because any wiki - as well as any blog and any CMS - is an authoring tool). ATAG 1.0∞ has guidelines for the system's interface itself as well as for how an authoring tool takes care that it creates code that conforms to WCAG 1.0∞.
By distinguishing between the Wikka user interface itself (which should conform to WCAG∞) and how Wikka works as a code-authoring tool (which should conform to ATAG∞) it will actually be easier to evaluate where we are and to improve upon that.
Maybe a separate page listng each of the items in each of the two guidelines, together with where we stand for each of those, could help us attain as high a level of conformance as humanly possible.
There are conformance "buttons" for ATAG∞ as well (I also fixed the alt text of these examples and made them into valid XHTML):
--JavaWoman
References
- Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)∞
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0∞
- Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0∞
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