Authoring Tools Guidelines Working Group Charter (Code Name: WAI-AU)

Purpose:

Compose W3C guidelines, related to Web content authoring tools, which address the following two goals:

1. to make authoring tools accessible to authors with disabilities
2. to provide author support for creating accessible Web documents.

WAI-AU Working group tasks

1. Create guidelines for making authoring tools accessible to users with disabilities. Guidelines can be divided into two areas (we intend to concentrate on developing the latter):
   • general accessible interface guidelines and
   • guidelines specific to HTML or structured document authoring (XML, style sheet)
2. Create guidelines, documents and prototype utilities for authoring tools which provide author support for creating accessible documents.
   1. Recommendations and guidelines produced by the PF (Protocols & Formats), GL (Markup Guidelins) and HC (HTML & CSS review) will be reviewed to determine which guidelines can be supported within the authoring tool and recommended mechanisms for doing so.
   2. Guidelines for developing authoring tools which support the creation of accessible documents will be created. These will include priority levels and example implementations.
   3. Example help files will be authored which can be included in authoring tool help files to instruct authors on the need and mechanisms for creating accessible Web documents
   4. Tools for partially automating such processes as linking d-links, reusing alt-text, creating accessible style sheets, etc. will be prototyped or specified.
3. Provide information and guidance to the WAI Education group related to educating, negotiating with and lobbying authoring tool developers to adopt recommendations.

WAI-AU Timeline

Duration: 9 months (Which should put us around Fall 98 for first deliverable)

WAI-AU Communication

A mailing list (w3c-wai-au@w3.org), a web area (www.w3.org/WAI/AU), and conference calls, will be the normal way of communicating within the group.

Meeting mechanisms and Schedules:

• ongoing discussion via email
• live chat meetings over the web on a weekly basis
• strategically scheduled conference calls
• quarterly face to face meetings appropriately distributed geographically and exploiting events participants may be attending

Working Group People

We encourage people whose area of competence are HTML, CSS, authoring tools and accessibility to join this group.

For the work group to accomplish the stated objectives the membership must include representatives from disability groups, as well as browser, authoring tool and assistive technology developers. The group must represent the needs of a wide range of disabilities and computer skill levels of persons with disabilities.

Jutta Treviranus, from the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre University of Toronto will be the chair of this group.

Participation Level

Employees of W3C members and other invited technical experts are welcome and encouraged to participate in our listserv discussions (auto-subscription is not available, please contact the chair for subscription).

If you want to join the WAI-AU working group and participate actively, please fill out the following form and send it to wai-au-call@w3.org.

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WAI-AU working group participation form

First Name:

Last Name:

Email Address:

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Employer:

Specific area of interest:

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