Accessibility 2.0: Next steps for web accessibility

Abstract

The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) was established to enhance the accessibility of Web resources for people with disabilities. In this article we argue that although WAI's advocacy work has been very successful, the WAI approach is flawed. Rather than WAI's emphasis on adoption of technical guidelines, the authors argue that the priority should be for a user-focused approach, which embeds best practices through the development of achievable policies and processes and which includes all stakeholders in the process of maximizing accessibility. The article describes a Tangram model, which provides a pluralistic approach to Web accessibility, and provides case studies that illustrate use of this approach. The article describes work that has informed the ideas in this article and plans for further work, including an approach to advocacy and education that coins the term Accessibility 2.0 to describe a renewed approach to accessibility, which builds on previous work but prioritizes the importance of the user.