Certification

People deciding on which Web Publishing System to use for their organisation are usually not accessibility experts. The WRI aims to provide them with tools to help them make an informed decision. One such tool would be a Certification program.

Certification requirements will have to be defined (through an open process). W3C standards (such as ATAG) will be used as a starting point for defining certification requirements.

Certificate levels

There will be certificates for three levels of compliancy.

1. Bronze certification requires compliance with all bronze certification requirements
2. Silver certification requires compliance with all bronze, and all silver certification requirements
3. Gold certification requires compliance with all bronze, all silver, and all gold certification requirements

This should make basic certification (bronze) within reach for more Web Publishing Systems and at the same time allow more ambitious Web Publishing Systems to be easily recognisable as such (silver and gold certificates).

Certification process

A professional certification process that guarantees unbiased judgement will need to be defined. Test procedures need to be laid out in as much detail as possible. In as far as human judgement will be required, and it will, these will have to be people who at the very least have not worked on the code they are judging and also have no ties with competing systems.

Even the impression of bias will render certification meaningless.

Certificates’ life span

Certificates will apply to tested (and approved) versions. A process will have to be defined on how to deal with certified systems' updates. Even a minor update might introduce problems resulting in the system not passing WRI-certification. Therefore the new version will have to be validated again before it is certified. However, given the rate at which some systems are being developed, we need to find practical solutions; not create a bureacracy that would hold back AWPS development.

A possible solution might be that a WRI certificate is valid for the tested version, as well as for new versions but then only for a limited period (of 1 year, for example). But given that there is no universal definition of “new version” this will still leave room for disputes.

(Individual Web Publishing Systems’ architectures will play a role here. If all output is checked for accessibility by passing it through a dedicated module before publishing, then WRI validation of new versions will be relatively easy. If however these checks are spread thoughout the entire system, then the entire system may have to be validated anew...)

Site certification

A possible additional strategy might be to also offer a Website Certification Program. Allow anyone who bought a Website to have it audited by the WRI and, if it passes WRI’s requirements, certify the site - if not, list what needs to be done in order to be certified. Of course Web designers themselves would be equally welcome to request the WRI to certify their product. It might be an interesting extra service for them to offer to their customers.