[DRAFT] Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group Charter
The mission of the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group is to ensure W3C specifications provide support for accessibility to people with disabilities. The group advances this mission through review of W3C specifications, development of new specifications and technical support materials, collaboration with other Working Groups, and coordination of harmonized accessibility strategies within W3C.
This is a draft recharter for the APA Working Group. Please send comments to group-apa-chairs@w3.org.
| Start date | Expected: 01 August 2018 |
|---|---|
| End date | Expected: 31 July 2021 |
| Chairs | Janina Sajka |
| Team Contacts | Michael Cooper (0.30 FTE Primary TC), Ruoxi Ran (0.25 FTE for COGA Task Force, Personalization Semantics, and AHR), Shadi Abou-Zahra (0.05 FTE for RQTF), Judy Brewer (0.10 FTE for RQTF) |
| Meeting Schedule | Teleconferences: The Working Group and its
Task Forces generally each hold weekly teleconferences, but this
may vary over time according to agenda and preferences. Face-to-face: The Working Group generally meets during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year. |
Scope
- Support W3C Working Groups to create technical specifications that
provide features needed for accessibility to people with
disabilities:
- Provide expertise to the W3C about the needs of users with disabilities, including both serving as a resource base and providing educational in-reach to the W3C community as needed;
- Review W3C requirements and specifications (accessibility horizontal reviews, AHR) as needed to identify accessibility issues and make recommendations to the appropriate Working Group, particularly at the First Public Working Draft and Last Call or Candidate Recommendation stages and when explicit milestone review readiness is signaled;
- Work closely with Working Groups when needed to help them architect their specifications to support, and not unknowingly interfere with, accessibility;
- Develop and publish explanatory information about accessibility of
web technology:
- Document concrete guidance about how to ensure technical specifications appropriately support accessibility;
- Collect information about technology features, implementation, and usage patterns to institutionalize W3C knowledge about present-day accessibility problems, including for emerging technologies such as social networking, real-time communications, Web-based television viewing, etc.;
- Explore new technologies and accessibility challenges and begin to
develop remediation approaches:
- Leverage existing W3C markup technologies to produce new specifications which support content personalization for various identified accessibility requirements;
- Determine accessibility considerations for new devices and technologies, such as e-books, mobile communications devices, tablets, automotive interfaces, Web-enabled television, etc.;
- Identify gaps and questions from accessibility specification reviews that may need research, and articulate findings and specific questions for discussion in various additional fora;
- Coordinate with other accessibility stakeholders (including other
WAI groups, accessibility proponents in other groups, and external
accessibility organizations) to develop harmonized accessibility
guidance across W3C:
- Coordinate with accessibility proponents in W3C technical groups to help ensure accessibility solutions are developed in a consistent manner across technologies and to ensure that accessibility needs are addressed at an appropriate part of the technology stack;
- Involve accessibility proponents in other fora - such as the WAI Interest Group, community groups, coordination activities, and other centers of expertise - to maximize the knowledge and impact brought to the group's activities;
- Advocate creation and reuse of common implementations of functions that are required by accessibility;
- Review non-W3C technologies that impact the accessibility of W3C technologies;
- Strategize solutions within W3C and via liaisons with external organizations.
Success Criteria
- Advancement of personalization support on the web via specifications published by this group and features incorporated into other work.
- Improved accessibility of W3C technologies as measured by the activity of accessibility proponents in coordination with APA, accepted comments on specifications, and other tracked Working Group dialog;
- Release of Web Technology Accessibility Guidelines as Working Group Note and indications of its use by other Working Groups;
- Documentation of new accessibility issues and solutions, potentially with spin-off work begun;
- Record of active and sustained coordination between APA and other stakeholders.
Deliverables
Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state.
Normative Specifications
The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:
- Personalization Semantics Content Module
-
This specification will assist specification developers in ensuring technologies address accessibility user requirements.
Draft state: Editor's Draft
Expected completion: Q3 2019
Adopted Working Draft: Personalization Semantics Content Module 1.0, https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/WD-personalization-semantics-content-1.0-20180316/, 16 March 2018
Reference Draft: Personalization Semantics Content Module 1.0, https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/WD-personalization-semantics-content-1.0-20180316/, 16 March 2018. Exclusion period began 13 February 2018; Exclusion period ended 13 July 2018.
Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2015/10/aria-charter.html. This deliverable was initially published by the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group and is being moved to the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group.
- Personalization Semantics Help and Support Module
-
This specification will assist specification developers in ensuring technologies address accessibility user requirements.
Draft state: Editor's Draft
Expected completion: Q2 2020
- Personalization Semantics Tools Module
-
This specification will assist specification developers in ensuring technologies address accessibility user requirements.
Draft state: Editor's Draft
Expected completion: Q2 2021
The Working Group may publish additional Personalization Semantics modules during the course of this charter.
Other Deliverables
Other non-normative documents may be created such as:
- Personalization Semantics Explainer to explain the use cases for Personalization Semantics, structure of the vocabulary, and how to use the technology in content;
- Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies (FAST) to assist specification developers in ensuring technologies address accessibility user requirements;
- FAST checklist to help Working Groups self-review against the FAST;
- Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA to explain problems and solutions for people with disabilities in human vesus bot differentiation techniques;
- Media Accessibility User Requirements to describe features needed in audio-visual media for content to be accessible for users with disabilities;
- Reviews of web technology specifications sent to maintaining entities;
- Working Group Notes to formalize accessibility knowledge on specific topics as the need arises;
- Research reports addressing, as needed, gaps identified during accessibility reviews of draft specifications, and/or technical questions emerging through other aspects of accessibility reviews;
- Gap analysis and roadmap for inclusion of people with cognitive disabilities;
- Use case and requirement documents;
- Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
- Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.
Timeline
Detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the group publication status page.
- October 2018: FPWD of Personalization Semantics Help and Support Module
- October 2018: FPWD of Personalization Semantics Tools Module
- July 2019: Rec of Personalization Semantics Content Module
- May 2020: Rec of Personalization Semantics Help and Support Module
- May 2021: Rec of Personalization Semantics Tools Module
Coordination
For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD and at least 3 months before CR, and should be issued when major changes occur in a specification.
Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:
W3C Groups
- Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group
- Coordinate on development of techniques and general content accessibility issues.
- ARIA Working Group
- Coordinate on resolution of architectural issues identified by ARIA and meeting user needs identified by APA.
- CSS Working Group
- Coordinate on general CSS accessibility topics.
- Internationalization Working Group
- Coordinate how to address accessibility and internationalization in W3C specs.
- SVG Working Group
- Coordinate on general graphics accessibility topics.
- Timed Text Working Group
- Ensure Media Accessibility User Requirements are met in TTML and WebVTT.
- WAI Interest Group
- Engage in specification review and research activity.
- Web Real-Time Communications Working Group
- Ensure Media Accessibility User Requirements are met in WebRTC.
- Web Payments Working Group
- Coordinate on accessibility of payments.
- Web Platform Working Group
- Coordinate on general HTML and web API accessibility topics.
External Organizations
- IETF
- Coordinate on protocols that impact accessibility of web content.
- ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35 User interfaces
- Coordinate user interface requirements and applicability to web content.
- WHATWG
- Coordinate on accessibility of web technologies.
Participation
To be successful, the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, with participation where possible including representation from industry including browser and assistive technology implementers, disability communities, and accessibility research. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.
The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.
The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.
Communication
Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed on a public repository, and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however, except by explicit one-time invitation from the chair(s).
Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group home page.
This group uses the public mailing list public-apa@w3.org (archive) and GitHub. Additional communication channels are also used. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.
The group may use a confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.
Decision Policy
This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 3.3). The Working Group maintains specific procedures to establish and measure consensus and address objections in the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group Decision Policy. All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.
This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes), and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.
Patent Policy
This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 5 February 2004 updated 1 August 2017). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Recommendations that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.
Licensing
This Working Group will use the W3C Document license for Recommendation-track deliverables and the W3C Software and Document license for Note-track deliverables and licensed non-TR publications.
About this Charter
This charter has been created according to section 5.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.
Charter History
The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):
| Charter Period | Start Date | End Date | Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Charter | 22 October 2015 | 31 July 2018 | none |
| Rechartered | [dd monthname yyyy] | [dd monthname yyyy] |
Changes from the previous charter (@@ update diff from previous charter):
|
Work in the scope of this group was, before the previous charter, carried out by the Protocols and Formats Working Group.