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“Triple A” Accessibility,
the Myth
There are a number of web sites that claim 'AAA' compliance, but are their claims true? Is it, in fact, possible at all?
The 'AAA' Checkpoints
'AAA' is a popular title for compliancy with Priority 1, 2 and 3 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.0).
Here is a summary of the level three checkpoints:
- 1.5 Until user agents render text equivalents for client-side image map links, provide redundant text links for each active region of a client-side image map.
- 4.2 Specify the expansion of each abbreviation or acronym in a document where it first occurs.
- 4.3 Identify the primary natural language of a document.
- 5.5 Provide summaries for tables.
- 5.6 Provide abbreviations for header labels.
- 9.4 Create a logical tab order through links, form controls, and objects.
- 9.5 Provide keyboard shortcuts to important links (including those in client-side image maps), form controls, and groups of form controls.
- 10.3 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render side-by-side text correctly, provide a linear text alternative (on the current page or some other) for all tables that lay out text in parallel, word-wrapped columns.
- 10.4 Until user agents handle empty controls correctly, include default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas.
- 10.5 Until user agents (including assistive technologies) render adjacent links distinctly, include non-link, printable characters (surrounded by spaces) between adjacent links.
- 11.3 Provide information so that users may receive documents according to their preferences (e.g., language, content type, etc.)
- 13.5 Provide navigation bars to highlight and give access to the navigation mechanism.
- 13.6 Group related links, identify the group (for user agents), and, until user agents do so, provide a way to bypass the group.
- 13.7 If search functions are provided, enable different types of searches for different skill levels and preferences.
- 13.8 Place distinguishing information at the beginning of headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.
- 13.9 Provide information about document collections (i.e., documents comprising multiple pages.).
- 13.10 Provide a means to skip over multi-line ASCII art.
- 14.2 Supplement text with graphic or auditory presentations where they will facilitate comprehension of the page.
- 14.3 Create a style of presentation that is consistent across pages.
The checkpoint which perhaps deserves some attention is 11.3 which requires documents to be served up according to user preferences. Language is referred to as an example of such a preference. Taken literally this means that users should be able to access the content of a site in whatever language they want. This is clearly impossible and hence the literal interpretation of this checkpoint has to be assumed to be incorrect. The 'spirit' of this checkpoint clearly requires at least some form of alternative language representations of document content. One possible scenario could be public sector web sites providing content delivered in any of the major language groups within a country. In the UK, a number of public sector sites offer a Welsh language version and this could possibly be seen as satisfying the spirit of Checkpoint 11.3.
However, as is evident from a quick bit of 'googling', the majority of web sites sporting the 'AAA' badge don't do even that. The reality is that 'AAA' is very difficult without significant resources and even 'AA' is often difficult to maintain on every page.
In conclusion, in most cases, a 'AAA' claim should be taken as false, and even as an indicator of a superficial understanding of Web Accessibility.
