Unfortunately,
the terminology and acronym use has become a bit obtuse, so it is worth disseminating
the differences and detailing which points designers, developers, and directors need to be
concerned about.
The W3C
The W3C is a large, nonprofit organization comprised of hundreds of individuals and
organizations whose purpose is to establish standards and guidelines for the Web. They are
most famous for establishing HTML, CSS, and XML, but also actively work on standards for
the PNG and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) graphic formats, SOAP and other web service
standards, MathML, and much more.
The WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)6 is the accessibility arm of the W3C. Consisting of
representatives from higher education, commercial companies, and independent volunteers,
the WAI sets a common standard for website accessibility through the Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). These guidelines are the starting point for building accessible
websites, and for now, remain the only global standard for web accessibility. In fact,
most government accessibility laws are derivative of WCAG 1.0, which was established in
May of 1999.
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