JIS X 8341-3
and international standard harmonization

JIS X 8341-3: Japanese WCAG

"Guidelines for older persons and persons with disabilities -Information and communications equipment, software and services- Part 3: Web content"

• published in June 2004.
• developed under the framework of ISO/IEC Guide71 (JIS Z 8071)
• used as procurement requirements in public sector
• Clause 6 mentions the importance of process
• considered Web accessibility problems obvious in Japanese
• considered currently available assistive technologies in Japan
• Harmonization: W3C/WAI WCAG 1.5

Strong relationship between JIS and ISO

• ISO/IEC Guide 71 (2001): proposed from Japan. (≡ JIS Z 8071)
• JIS X 8341-1: ISO/DIS 9241-20 "Ergonomics of human-system interaction - Part 20; Accessibility guidelines for ICT equipment and services"
• JIS X 8341-2: will propose ISO/IEC JTC1 in 2006?
• JIS X 8341-3: harmonize with W3C/WAI WCAG 2.0
• JIS X 8341-4: ITU-T in 2006?

JIS WG and WCAG WG has good communication. We need i18n standard harmonization.

W3C/WAI should take WCAG 2.0 to ISO (JAPAN help this process!)

WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft

Workshop to understand and discuss WCAG 2.0 Last Call WD (May, 7, Tokyo)

• Objective: to submit good/constructive public comments.
• 40 participants: IBM, Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, NTT, NHK, Web developers, users with visual disabilities, students
• JIS WG2 provide:
  • Japanese translation of WCAG 2.0 and Understanding
  • Comparison table between WCAG 2.0 and JIS X 8341-3 (Excel, in Japanese)
• Explain WCAG 2.0 to participants
• Question and discussion with participants

Preliminary relevant questions to WCAG 2.0

Baseline is a good concept. We support it. But

• Baseline depends on UA. Capability of UA determines if that technology is "accessible" .
• Baseline technologies cannot be always accessible.
  Even (X)HTML, major japanese screen readers cannot use structure markups.
• A lot of UA for various disabilities may result in strict baseline.

Baseline needs careful treatment:

• Capability survey of UA is important to show what part of technology is accessible.
• Many concrete examples (eg. US and Japanese public sector) of how to set a baseline is needed.

Preliminary relevant questions to WCAG 2.0

Validity

• Why not require validity? Validity is easy to test and enhances accessibility.

G1.2: Provide synchronized alternatives for multimedia

• Level 1 Success Criteria requires captions and audio descriptions for prerecorded multimedia
• This requirement is difficult to achieve in Japan.

Other questions, ...

• Differences of ** unit: Web unit, authored unit, delivery unit.
• Discussion of aggregate content is difficult to understand.

End of my presentation

JIS X 8341: Japanese Industrial Standards of ICT Accessibility Guidelines

Collaboration between JIS X 8341-3 and WCAG 2.0

• 2003: corresponding matrix between JIS X 8341-3 draft and WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0 WD (CSUN2004 presentation)
• November 2003: public comments to JIS X 8341-3 draft from W3C/WAI
• March 2004: answer to the above public comments
• (June 2004: JIS X 8341-3 was published)
• September 2004: public comments to WCAG 2.0 WD
• December 2005: public comments to WCAG 2.0 WD
• 2004-: Takayuki and Makoto attend WCAG WG
• 2005-: Masayasu (W3C/Keio) attend JIS WG

Importance of i18n Std Harmonization

• Industry: reduction of i18n trade barriers. Economic activities are global. If there is a big difference in accessibility std then manufacturers have to tackle with that difference.
• Consumers: global market will produce high-quality and low-price products. Global market needs global std. In addition to that if stds are not harmonized people who go to another country are confused.
• Government: All Japanese accessibility guidelines were developed under the Guide 71. And we already have 4 guidelines. If another guideline of the same area is developed independently, and submitted to ISO, Japan must adjust the difference.

if Web content accessibility guidelines are different among countries. Global company cannot use one template or one CMS to create their Web pages in each countries. If some countries allow JavaScript but some countries do not, a company have to have two systems. That raises the cost of their Web pages and makes it difficult to update every Web sites properly. Then quality of Web sites including accessibility quality is not good in those sites.