Accessible Internet: From the WAI Initiative to Russian Practice

For many years, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been promoting the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) project, the main goal of which is formulated in the slogan “Making the web accessible.” As part of the WAI initiative, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are being developed to help website developers take into account the needs of people with disabilities. GOST R 52872-2019 has been promulgated in the Russian Federation, based on WCAG recommendations. Some provisions of GOST R 52872-2019 are presented in this paper. Law No. 181-FZ, on the social protection of persons with disabilities, which has been in force since 1995, establishes a norm according to which developers of information resources must create conditions for people with disabilities to freely use communications and information. The general provisions of this law are implemented in the directive documents of relevant departments. The paper considers the provisions of the order of the Ministry of Finance of 2023, which determine the procedure for presenting information on the websites of organizations in a form that is convenient for people with vision and hearing problems. The provisions of the Ministry of Finance’s order encourage the developers of websites of organizations subordinate to government bodies at various levels in the Russian Federation to ensure sufficient text contrast, adhere to adaptive design, equip non-text objects with a text layer or comments, simplifying the labor of people with disabilities on the Internet, and contribute to the development of artificial intelligence tools.