5 April 2007

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has unveiled its new internationalised standard for the web, which could ultimately have a major impact on accessibility.

Dubbed Internationalisation Tag Set 1.0, the new standard has been created in response to challenges faced by the industry - namely the identification of text language and the translation of content.

This can then be applied in localisation or by designers creating internationalised XML content - whether altering an existing system or creating a new one.

Declaration of language is vital for accessibility, as information in non-western languages has previously been somewhat prohibitive to designers of software and assistive technology.

Richard Ishida, W3C Internationalisation Activity Lead, explained that many international users and those attempting to localise can find difficulties due to an original lack of internationalisation - which is the process of developing web technologies to work with other languages.

"Developers may not know what's needed, or may only provide part of what's needed, and then do so inconsistently from schema to schema," he said.

© Adfero Ltd

Keep up to date with industry and Nomensa news by signing up to Nomensa newsletters.