Inclusion and Accessibility News Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) of the W3C Published in Portuguese Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) of the W3C Published in Portuguese
- 23/04/2009
The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) took the initiative to commission a Portuguese translation of the Accessibility Guidelines for Web 2.0 Content (text in Portuguese) and made it available on the Internet (WCAG 2.0 – Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of the W3C – World Wide Web Consortium), which were approved on 11th December 2008 after they had been prepared through an open process with wide-ranging global participation over the course of several years.
Portuguese was the third language the new guidelines were translated into in the world on 25th February 2009, following only English (the original) and Hungarian.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) cover a huge range of recommendations to make Web content more accessible to a greater number of people with disabilities, including blindness and visual impairments, deafness and hearing loss, learning difficulties, cognitive limitations, restricted movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity and combinations of these disabilities. Compliance with these guidelines will also make it easier for users in general to use Web content. The new guidelines were also developed with the goal of making validity verification tests more objective.
The WCAG 2.0 replaces the Web 1.0 Content Accessibility Guidelines (text in Portuguese) (WCAG 1.0) which were published as a W3C Recommendation in May 1999. Although either WCAG 1.0 or WCAG 2.0 (or both) can be followed, the W3C recommends that new and updated content use the WCAG 2.0 version, and that Web accessibility policies also reference WCAG 2.0.
ICT accessibility for citizens with special needs was one of the issues discussed at the Ministerial Meeting on European e-Inclusion Policy, which was held in Lisbon on 2nd – 3rd December 2007 in the scope of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, whose Presidency Conclusions, among other e-Inclusion actions, call on the European Commission and Ministers to address barriers to e-Accessibility, beefing up, monitoring and encouraging compliance with e-Accessibility rules.
The story of Internet content accessibility best practice in Portugal is already a long one, given that it was the 1st country in Europe and the 4th in the world to adopt legislation on Public Administration website accessibility on the Internet, with the Council of Ministers’ approval in August 1999 of the National Initiative for Citizens With Special Needs in the Information Society. More recently, a Council of Ministers Resolution was approved on 27th September 2007 setting out guidelines for the Accessibility of Government and Public Administration sites on the Internet, setting targets for achieving “A” level conformity pursuant to the guidelines on accessibility of content on the Internet developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (1.0) within 3 months, and “AA” level for sites with transactional services within six months. The outcome of this was a significant improvement in the accessibility of Central Public Administration and Government sites on the Internet.
The Access Programme website (site in Portuguese) provides information and tools on ICT accessibility for citizens with special needs and ICT-based help for these citizens. The Access Programme continues the work carried out by the Access Unit – Accessibility for Citizens with Special Needs to the Information Society, which was set up in 1999 under the Ministry of Science & Technology and which was later incorporated into Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC).