Web accessibility standards and policies in Japan

Takayuki Watanabe (TWCU)

CoreNGI/ITRC Joint WS (2004, Daejeon, Korea)

27 November, 2004

http://www.comm.twcu.ac.jp/~nabe/data/ITRC16/

• JIS (Japan Industrial Standard) X 8341-3, "Guideline for older persons and persons with disabilities -information and communications equipment, software and services- Part3: Web Content", was published in 20 June 2004.
• The first guideline in the area of Web accessibility.
• My talk firstly show the outline of JIS X 8341-3. Then, talk about the importance of international standard harmonization and W3C/WAI's WCAG 2.0 working draft.

Note: This HTML file was created with the "xsltSlidemaker" and is prepared for the CSS2 "projection" mode. :-)

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

ISO/IEC Guide 71, "Guidelines for standards developers to address the needs of older persons and persons with disabilities" (JIS Z 8071)

a general guideline to develop specific guidelines

JIS X 8341-1, "Guideline for older persons and persons with disabilities -information and communications equipment, software and services- Part1: Common Guidelines"

a common guideline in the area of information and communications equipment, software and services

JIS X 8341-3

developed under this common guideline to treat accessibility issues in the area of Web content.

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

JIS X 8341-3, published in 20 June 2004, is WCAG 1.5 +- something.

1. developed regarding WCAG 1.0 and other guidelines. also consider WCAG 2.0 WD.
2. mainly for public use.
3. considered currently available AT in Japan.
4. considered Japanese specific issues.
5. mentions the importance of process: life-cycle of design, development, evaluation, and maintenance.
6. includes a lot of examples, which is technology specific.

• Introduction
• 1. Scope
• 2. Normative references
• 3. Definition
• 4. General principles
• 5. Specific requirements for development and production
• 6. General requirements for assurance and improvement of information accessibility
• Annex 1 (informative) Examples related to Web content
• Annex 2 (informative) Related standards

My presentation at CSUN 2004 showed an outline of JIS X 8341-3 and comparison between JIS and WCAG 1.0 / WCAG 2.0 working draft.

• 5.1 Standard and specifications
• 5.2 Structure and display style
• 5.3 Operation and input
• 5.4 Non-text information
• 5.5 Colour and shape
• 5.6 Character
• 5.7 Sound
• 5.8 Speed
• 5.9 Language

[Some examples]

• 6.1 Requirement for planning and production
• 6.2 Requirement for maintenance and operation
• 6.3 Requirement for verification
• 6.4 Requirement for feedback
• 6.5 Requirement for user support

[Some examples]

Online purchase:

JSA (Japanese Standards Association) Web Store (Japanese and English PDF files are available)

View Japanese JIS online:

JISC (Japanese Industrial Standards Committee)

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

• WG that developed JIS X 8341-3:2004 was dissolved in fiscal year 2003 and a new WG was organized this year.
• This working group (Web Accessibility International Standards Research Working Group) of INSTAC (Information Technology Research and Standardization Center, JAPAN), which chair is I, has two objectives. They are:
  1. international standard harmonization with W3C and other countries.
  2. national promotion of JIS X 8341-3.
• There are many activities of private companies to enhance Web accessibility using JIS X 8341-3. Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) launched a study group to help Web accessibility in a public sector.

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

JIS X 8341-3 includes some guidelines which importances are obvious in Japanese. Items shown below are a part of our (JIS WG) public comments submitted to WCAG WG in September 2004.

• Use the correct character
• Use readable fonts
• Pronunciations for difficult word
• Vertical writing

In English, shape of some characters such as '0' (zero) and 'O' (o), and '1' (one) and 'l' (l) resemble each other. Some languages such as Japanese and Chinese have a lot of similar looking characters and are often mistakenly used. For example in Japanese, font shape of characters such as 'ー' (Tyou-on), '―' (Zenkaku dash), and '－' (Zenkaku minus) are resemble each other. As all these characters are converted from the same character '-' with a Japanese input method, these characters are often misused in Japanese. A Japanese word "リード" is a correct word that means "lead" in English, while "リ―ド" makes no sense. Sighted users even do not notice this mistake, while users who use a screen reader cannot understand that word.

Font which is easy-to-read considering size and typeface should be specified.

Some Japanese characters and some characters of other languages consist of many strokes. Han ideograph of "聾", which means "deaf" in English, is one example. Characters consisting of large number of strokes may require larger size to be recognized by a user with low-vision. This problem can be compensated by selecting an appropriate font design.

Some words, especially proper nouns, have various pronunciations. For example in Japanese, a proper noun "三田" can be read as "みた" (Mi ta) or "さんだ" (Sa n da). In these cases users cannot imagine the correct pronunciation if it is not presented by a content creator. English also has similar examples because screen readers do not know the pronunciation of every words. A sighted user suffers little problem even if he cannot identify the correct pronunciation. A user with visual disability, however, may have difficulty in understanding content because pronunciation is an only clue for him.

Some languages such as Japanese have vertical writing mode. Some books are written totally in vertical. Japanese newspapers and magazines often use both horizontal and vertical writing in the same page. The writing-mode of CSS3 enables vertical writing from top to bottom. It should be prohibited to write vertically by inserting a line-break element between every character because a user agent cannot recognize these characters as one word. Only a sighted user can recognize these characters as one word. (Bad example: "V<br>E<br>R<br>T<br>I<br>C<br>A<br>L")

• Usability and accessibility: how far Web accessibility guidelines treat usability-related issues?
• Older persons and people with disabilities: does WCAG 2.0 consider older persons?

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

1. Guideline
   1. Four major principles for accessibility (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust)
   2. The (non-technology-specific) guidelines (13 in total)
   3. Succuess criteria (normative) for each guideline
2. Technology-specific Checklists (they do not exist yet.)
3. Technology-specific Techniques (code examples and other information)

WCAG WG of W3C/WAI published new public working drafts in 19 November 2004.

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
• General Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• HTML Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• CSS Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• Client-side Scripting Techniques for WCAG 2.0

Other Techniques documents, Technology-specific Checklists, and Test Suite are under development. WCAG 2.0 will become W3C Recommendation in 2005.

• Introduction
• Overview of Design Principles
• Principle 1: Content must be perceivable
• Guideline 1.1 Provide text alternatives for all non-text content.
• Guideline 1.2 Provide synchronized alternatives for mutimedia.
• Guideline 1.3 Ensure that information, functionality, and structure are separable from presentation.
• Guideline 1.4 Make it easy to distingish foreground information from background images or sounds.
• Principle 2: Interface elements in the content must be operable
• Guideline 2.1 Make all functionality operable via a keyboard or a keyboard interface.
• Guideline 2.2 Allow users to control time limits on their reading or interaction.
• Guideline 2.3 Allow users to avoid content that could cause photosensitive epileptic seizures.
• Guideline 2.4 Provide mechanisms to help users find content, orient themselves within it, and navugate through it.
• Guideline 2.5 Help users avoid mistakes and make it easy to correct them.
• Principle 3: Content and controls must be understabdable
• Guideline 3.1 Ensure that the meaning of content can be determined.
• Guideline 3.2 Organize content consistently from "page to page" and make interactive components behave in predictable ways.
• Principle 4: Content must be robust enough to work with current and future technologies
• Guideline 4.1 Use technologies according to specification.
• Guideline 4.2 Ensure that user interfaces are acceessible or provide an accessible alternative(s).
• Appendices

• Good communication is necessary in order to achieve an international standard harmonization. We are welcome to help other Asian countries to submit a good public comment to WCAG WG.
• Are there more linguistic, social, and/or cultural issues in Web accessibility?

• I. ISO/IEC Guide 71 and JIS X 8341
• II. JIS X 8341-3
• III. Current status of JIS X 8341-3 and Web accessibility
• IV. Asian languages specific issues?
• V. WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
• Concluding Remarks

• JIS X 8341-3 was published in June 2004 under the framework of ISO/IEC Guide71.
• It might be WCAG 1.5 + Japanese specific issues + cope with current AT in Japan.
• Japan submitted public comments to WCAG WG to enhance international standard harmonization.
• Another public comments from other Asian countries will help WCAG WG.