Hi gang, thanks to everyone who showed up in person at Folklore cafe or online via Zoom, it was fun! Scott wasn’t able to make it, so David ran our Q&A session as well as managing Zoom. Below are the questions asked, with summaries of our answers and links to useful resources.

• When is WCAG 2.2 going to be released? Early next year.
• What’s going to be different in 2.2? WCAG 2.2 will add 9 new success criteria, with the biggest change being around focus visibility. There are some additions to how to present help options and making alternatives available in authentication processes (i.e. Captcha). You can read more from the W3C about What’s New in WCAG 2.2 or check out Amanda’s presentation from PWAC earlier this year.
• Why are there two versions of WCAG being worked on at the same time, version 2.2 and version 3.0? Because version 3.0 of WCAG is re-imagining how it works completely. It’s intended to be role-based, and to be written in plain language. Work on version 3 is expected to take several years to complete, although hopefully afterwards it will be easier to make updates to it. Version 2.2 adds a few criteria but keeps the same structure and methods as WCAG 2.0 and 2.1.
• I’m drowning in PDFs, what do I do? Can they be made accessible? Yes, PDFs can be made accessible. You might like to try the PDF checker from the PDF/UA foundation, a non-profit group working to improve the accessibility of PDFs. Dax Castro gave a good presentation about PDF accessibility (YouTube, but he also shared a PDF of his slides) at the last OZeWAI event too. Or you can check our Services page to find local accessibility experts who can help! Maybe read the PDF Reduction Strategy article at 4Sylllables, there’s some useful tips in there on how to prioritise which PDFs get fixed and which get replaced.
• In WCAG 2.1, there’s a criteria for non-text contrast: what’s it about? Non-text contrast is about making sure that everything people need to understand a user interface has enough contrast. This includes things like focus indicators, the borders of form inputs, and useful icons. These have a minimum contrast requirement of 3:1, which is a little less than the text contrast requirements.
• What are some websites which used to have poor accessibility but have improved? Our group had a few suggestions: Coles online shopping, Bankwest, ScreenWest and the Department of Communities. We also love the new VisAbility site which was redesigned early this year.

There was also some chat about the TPAC breakout sessions, high contrast themes, accessibility testing software, and what’s in XO sauce. Looking forward to chatting again next month!