• Reported by Russ

Today organisations representing four continents announced the official launch of the Web Accessibility Tool Consortium - WAT-C. The new consortium is developing a series of browser-based web accessibility analysis tools under a general public license agreement.

"By harnessing the passion, knowledge, and creativity of this international group of web accessibility practitioners," stated Steven Faulkner WAT-C founder, "We have a unique opportunity to provide tools to promote the understanding and development of an accessible web."

The consortium will promote and pursue software development goals including:
- Free web accessibility testing software,
- Enhanced development of existing web accessibility testing tools
- The internationalization of web accessibility testing software

"There is an international movement to harmonise divergent web accessibility guidelines, such as WCAG by the W3C, Section 508 in the US, and JIS in Japan," Makoto Ueki of Infoaxia and co-founder of WAT-C. "We want to support this process through international collaboration in the development of tools to help all web developers produce accessible websites."

WAT-C will shortly release an updated version of the Web Accessibility Toolbar for Internet Explorer, and recently announced the release of a Colour Contrast Analyser utility. Toolbar versions for Mozilla/Firefox and Opera are in development.