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[Editors' Draft] Planning Updates to Policies Relating to Web Accessibility

• current page
• draft update
• Submitting Updates to Policies Relating to Web Accessibility

Intro

Scope

The page is a factual listing only; it does not include any commentary, editorial, summary, or interpretation. It lists formal government documents that clarify policy. It does not list things like how to implement policy.

Use Case examples

• Writing country policy - Policy-maker's assistant is researching policies in other countries in order to help draft a policy for his country.
• Expanding product market - Project manager is in charge of a project to expand market into other countries. She needs to learn what web accessibility regulations there are in those other countries that apply to her web-based product.
  
• Educating - Speaker/trainer will be giving course in a new country and wants to know what the policies are in that country.
• Developing standards - For example, like participants of ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC35 User interfaces, want quick information on specific countries' policies.
• Developing organizational policy - Executive is researching governmental policies to inform development of a policy for her organization.

Usage examples

• Quickly checking one - Need to get a quick idea of the policies in a specific country, maybe your own or another.
• Getting big picture - Need an overall picture of policies in countries similar to mine, and don't have time to delve into details. Or, want to know which countries have adopted WCAG 2.0.
• Researching one in detail - Want to learn a lot about the policies and related issues in a specific country or region.
• Comparing - Accessibility/policy/legal expert/researcher/marketer wants to compare and contrast the situation between countries with similar and/or disparate political/legal/socioeconomic/etc. systems.

Approach

Options:

Content:

1. updates that we already know about
2. pursue existing contacts for updates
3. detective work to update broken links
4. research harder content updates

Design, UI & technical:

1. consider minor tweaks to user interface - mostly just template for listings and maybe page organization (possibly add expand-collapse)
2. reassess and revise the interface for the users getting the information and propose significant redesign if warranted (will if do C below)
3. revise the process for submitting and updating the information, probably using database approach

Tasks for 1,2,a:

1. Research similar lists.
2. [done] Review current format for listings and decide if want to change the template for content and/or for formatting
3. [done] Decide how to process updates -- e.g., first put in Draft page and when to update the live page -- and how to indicate which countries are updated in the live page (assuming we post some before all are done).
4. [done] Update Submitting Updates to Policies Relating to Web Accessibility.
5. [done] Review updates that have already come in. [Listed in the draft update, but most are quite old.]
6. [in progress] Contact potential people about providing updated data for country of their interest.
7. Draft updates and inform review list (Judy, EOWG including Shadi, ?).
8. After sufficient time for review, post updates.

Schedule

The following schedule assumes that we do updates in three batches. We might decide to switch modes to posting updates more frequently after the first batch, e.g., if updates come in more staggered.
Also, there are only a couple people in the critical review path. If they complete reviews ahead of schedule, we can go ahead and post them.

• New formatting and misc issues:
  • [done 2 August] 3 August - send draft new content and formatting to EOWG for discussion
  • [done 5 August] 5 August - EOWG discuss draft new content and formatting
  • [done 5 August] 10 August - send new content and formatting to EOWG for further discussion, if needed
  • 15-18 August - Judy review EOWG decisions and discuss any issues with Shawn
    
  • 19 August - EOWG discuss new content and formatting, if needed
• Front matter (note that it probably does not need this much discussion or back-and-forth, but it's scheduled just in case):
  • [done 10 August] 12 August - send draft front matter to Judy
  • 15-18 August - Judy review draft front matter and discuss any issues with Shawn
    
  • 18 August - send draft to EOWG
  • 2 Sept - EOWG discuss draft front matter
  • 6-7 Sept - Judy, Shawn, Jennifer discuss and edit, if needed
  • 7 Sept - send final front matter to EOWG
  • 9 Sept - EOWG discuss final front matter, if needed
  • 12-13 Sept - Judy, Shawn, Jennifer discuss and edit, if needed
  • 15 Sept - ready for posting live
• Updates batch 1:
  • [done 4 August] 17 August - ask "internal" content providers for updated sections
  • 31 August - batch 1 updates available for review
  • 15 Sept - post batch 1 updates
    (maybe announce on 15 Sept, or wait for next batch - depending on how many we have and other considerations)
• Updates batch 2:
  • 15 Sept - ask known content providers for updated sections, ask for material by 29 Sept
  • 11 Oct - batch 2 updates available for review
  • 20 Oct - post batch 2 updates
    (announce now if haven't already)
• Updates batch 3:
  • 12 Oct - start researching remaining outdated listings
  • 27 Oct - batch 3 updates available for review
  • 15 Nov - post batch 3 updates
    
• Maintenance mode - timing will depend on when and how many updates come in

Issues

Content and Format

• [EOWG suggests - JB OK Oct 2012] Historical info, broken links - create a historical page that starts with the current live page. Leave the old URI for broken links in the historical page ("Important Document Title [formerly at http://www...]"). Do not include old URIs in the main page. For broken links in the main page: if a major document, then leave the information unlinked; if its a less important document, then remove it from the main page (and leave it in the historical page).
• [EOWG suggests] Be very selective in the information - currently some sections are too overwhelming - especially the "Additional Information" sections. Example that would stay: Access Board's Section 255 FAQ; example of what might go: Attorney General's speech on Section 508. Include the most current and authoritative policy information, don't include historical material and tangential material — it's not worth the clutter and potential confusion.
• [EOWG suggests] "deep linking" - If only a specific section of a big doc is relevant to web accessibility, provide the link directly to that section if possible - along with a link to overall document, e.g., Overall Disability Regulation, particularly Section 57: Web Accessibility.
• [EOWG suggests] sub-headings:
  • [EOWG suggests] keep same headings.
  • [open - EOWG suggests - JB "Jurisdiction (Ministry, Department, Agency)" Oct 2012] always have "Legislation:" and "Jurisdiction:"(or "Responsible Ministry" or "Responsible Department or Agency" per old update notes) headings. Consider putting "not applicable" if we know there are none (like Denmark); "unknown" if we don't know. currently in both cases we put a dash (-)
  • [EOWG suggests] only include "Relevant documents:" and "Additional information:" when there are items under them.
  • [open - some suggest] consider marking up these as headings - note that some introduce lists and some are inline with one bit of information

UI (user interface)

• [done] Any changes to Submitting Updates to Policies Relating to Web Accessibility ?
• [open] How to indicate that countries are updated in the live page? EOWG 5 August discussed various options, e.g., "Updated: January 2005 (Reviewed: January 2011)". EOWG mostly happy to leave for editors' discretion. Some points:
  • One date easier to process than two different dates. But cases below would need two different dates:
  • Use case: I put together a presentation in 20XX and I copied the info for Acme country from this Policies page into a slide and handout. I'm updating the presentation and want to quickly see if there is new information for Acme, see what date the info was updated.
  • Issue: We update a country's information in 2003. In 2011 we do a thorough check and find that there is no new information to list. We want to communicate that although the info we list hasn't changed, it is up-to-date as far as we know.
• [open] How to make it easy to find references to WCAG 2? Maybe just put "(WCAG 2.0)" with the Country list, as in New Zealand in the draft page. [EOWG not keen on] This is a thorny issue. For example, what about policies that reference "WCAG" without a version number, or even "WAI guidelines" or "W3C standards"? What about less officially references to WCAG 2.0? Explaining these could get into commentary. Maybe a separate list of "adopted or referred to WCAG 2.0ish"?
• [done] Add "back to top" links
• [suggested] Consider expand-collapse functionality

Front matter (Disclaimer, Status and Updates, Introduction)

• [suggested] Edit and re-organize the front matter.
• [open] keep "countries on this page" and the abbreviations at the top?
• [open] Also suggest consider sticking the disclaimer at the end, with a link to it from the intro, to keep the opening tone positive ('You will find what you're looking for here, or at least a very good starting point' rather than negative 'You will not find what you're looking for here. Go away.')? At least it should live after the intro, and I suggest also that the intro should live before the status and updates... (lm)
  [slh: need to consider work flow for repeat users (who don't want to scroll past through long intro each time — expand-collapse might help with that), and related issues (e.g., probably need some disclaimer info front and center]

Misc

• [suggested] Include UN Convention and maybe other global things - plus, if a country has ratified UN convention, then list that in the country's section
• [open] have a separate e-mail list for updates? (a benefit: people could check for updates not yet posted - which I hope won't be an issue in the future)
• [done] testing e-mail links:
  1. code for line breaks: wai-eo-editors@w3.org with Subject Policies Update - [XYZ country]
  2. body for line breaks: wai-eo-editors@w3.org with Subject Policies Update - [XYZ country]
  3. all in HTML: wai-eo-editors@w3.org with Subject Policies Update - [XYZ country]

Status

"old live" means there is a listing in the outdated current page.
"old update notes" means there are some notes in the draft update but they are old.

Country	status	primary content provider	notes
Australia	old live, old update notes	[done] Andrew Arch	new from Andrew
Australian States	old live	Andrew Arch	lower priority
Austria	[new listing] old update notes
Brazil	[new listing] old update notes
Canada	old live, old update notes	Denis ?Catherine Roy
Canadian Provinces	old live	Denis ?Catherine Roy
Denmark	old live	[done] Helle	new from Helle
European Union	old live, old update notes
Finland	old live
France	old live, old update notes	[done] Sylvie	new from Sylvie
Germany	old live, old update notes
Hong Kong	old live
India	old live, old update notes
Ireland	old live, old update notes
Israel	old live
Italy	old live, old update notes
Japan	old live
Mexico	[new listing] old update notes
New Zealand	old live, old update notes	[via Andrew]
Norway		[via Helle]
Portugal	old live
Singapore	[new listing] old update notes
Spain	old live, old update notes	Emmanuelle
Sweden		[via Helle]
Switzerland	old live, old update notes
United Kingdom	old live, old update notes	Liam
USA	old live
USA states	old live		out of scope for this round of updates

Notes

• Work effort:
  • currently have 20 countries, plus AU States(8/8) and CA provinces(1/10-13). [out of scope for this round: USA states(16/50)]
  • estimating that we can easily find a good content provider for at least 10 countries
  • estimating we want to actively pursue another 15 countries
  • checklinks found 20+ broken links
  • other
    • intro and front matter needs editing
    • markup needs cleanup
    • minor UI for now
  • ...

Consider for later version

• form for submitting updates

References

• wai-eo-editors list
• EOWG 5 August
• 4 August e-mail from Alan
• very old changelog, old Content and Format Notes from 2003
  

Changelog

...

Archive

Other policy-related lists:

• Government accessibility standards and WCAG 2 - Jun 6, 2015
• Digital Accessibility Laws Around the Globe - last updated on March 16, 2015
• Law, Lawsuits, Policies in Web Design References - Accessibility, University of Minnesota Duluth - long, unstructured, mostly US, UK, Australia- up-to-datedness unknown
• World Laws, WebAIM - up-to-datedness unknown
• ...

Issues discussed:

• several listed in Aug 2011 eo-editors e-mail archive
• Considering either eliminating, or lessening, the "Additional Information" sections? [discussion: needed in several cases, but don't include heading if nothing there]
• Having a one of the page contents items as 'contents' is a bit weird. [changed to "Countries and @@Regions" for now] How about a dropdown list of countries instead as a quick nav mechanism? (lm) [discussion: some people like having the list visible easily. if do expand-collapse, then moot point]
• Handling broken links - currently: Important Document Title [formerly at http://www...]
  • SG suggests: don't list the old links. archive this version of the page to preserve the old links.
    dissenting opinion: leave old links to help researchers who want to try to track them down. leave them in the code, commented out.
    compromise idea: make them smaller and gray like under Canada in the draft update -- but doesn't help for non-visual users.
  • SG suggests: if a major document can't be found, leave the information unlinked. if its a very minor document, might decide to remove it.
  • [suggestion changed to historical page as described above]
• ...

Document Information

Status: Editors' Draft updated $Date: 2015/07/03 01:53:30 $ by $Author: shawn $
Developed with participants of the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG).

[Contacting WAI] Feedback welcome to wai-eo-editors@w3.org (a publicly archived list).