The purpose of this document is to outline situations in which ensuring conformance of websites and applications might present a challenge for content providers, despite best intentions and efforts. The intent of this document is to help form a shared understanding of such situations, to contribute to the development of accessibility resources. These resources could include:
Content providers encounter situations where trying to make content conform to accessibility requirements might present challenges for them, despite best intentions and efforts. For example, when they are publishing large volumes of content, managing third-party content, and when they are adopting new technologies such as natural language interfaces and immersive environments. They then need to decide if they need to pull or not publish the content, versus seek more pragmatic approaches to address the situations. WCAG 3 and other resources from WAI, such as Planning and Managing Web Accessibility, have the goal to support content providers in such situations. However, we lack a shared understanding and common description of these situations across the different WAI groups. This makes some discussions less effective. Moreover, not all challenges can be resolved alone through technical standards and resources from WAI. Some challenges need to be addressed through accessibility policies that are not developed by WAI. For example, most accessibility policies, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and European Accessibility Act (EAA), include concepts around reasonable accommodation, undue burden, equivalent facilitation, and limitations on application. That is, we need to understand the context around the situations and that some of them are more technical and should be addressed in WCAG, while others are more policy related and need to be addressed in policy or regulation. Understanding this helps us approach the parts that fall within the scope of WAI.
-Content providers encounter situations where trying to make content conform to accessibility requirements might present challenges for them, despite best intentions and efforts. For example, when they are publishing large volumes of content, managing third-party content, and when they are adopting new technologies such as natural language interfaces and immersive environments. They then need to decide if they need to pull or not publish the content, versus seek more pragmatic approaches to address the situations. WCAG 3 and other resources from WAI, such as Planning and Managing Web Accessibility, have the goal to support content providers in such situations. However, we lack a shared understanding and common description of these situations across the different WAI groups. This makes some discussions less effective. Moreover, not all challenges can be resolved alone through technical standards and resources from WAI. Some challenges need to be addressed through accessibility policies that are not developed by WAI. For example, most accessibility policies, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and European Accessibility Act (EAA), include concepts around reasonable accommodation, undue burden, equivalent facilitation, and limitations on application. That is, we need to understand the context around the situations. Some of them are more technical in nature, and others are more policy related. Understanding this helps us approach the parts that fall within the scope of WAI.
+Content providers encounter situations where trying to make content conform to accessibility requirements might present challenges for them, despite best intentions and efforts. For example, when they are publishing large volumes of content, managing third-party content, and when they are adopting new technologies such as natural language interfaces and immersive environments. They then need to decide if they need to pull or not publish the content, versus seek more pragmatic approaches to address the situations. WCAG 3 and other resources from WAI, such as Planning and Managing Web Accessibility, have the goal to support content providers in such situations. However, we lack a shared understanding and common description of these situations across the different WAI groups. This makes some discussions less effective. Moreover, not all challenges can be resolved alone through technical standards and resources from WAI. Some challenges need to be addressed through accessibility policies that are not developed by WAI. For example, most accessibility policies, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and European Accessibility Act (EAA), include concepts around reasonable accommodation, undue burden, equivalent facilitation, and limitations on application. That is, we need to understand the context around the situations and that some of them are more technical and should be addressed in WCAG, while others are more policy related and need to be addressed in policy or regulation. Understanding this helps us approach the parts that fall within the scope of WAI.
Each situation in this document is illustrated with one or more brief example scenario. Each situation also includes a high-level outline of:
The situations and examples cover a broad range of sectors, including public, commercial, education, and more. However, they are not in any way exhaustive. The situations are also not mutually exclusive - multiple situations could be applicable to the same content at the same time.