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WAI: Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities

[ROUGH CONCEPT DRAFT]
["Process 101" title here]

Note: This document is a very rough initial concept draft only and should not be referenced or quoted under any circumstances.
$Date: 2006/08/08 19:07:18 $ [changelog]

This document provides a brief overview of the process that W3C documents go through in becoming a standard. It also lists the status of W3C Recommendations completed and in progress in the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Working Groups.

W3C Recommendation Track Stages

[reviewer's note: image below is a rough, OLD one for placeholder only! we would do a newer version]
diagram of process described below

The list below includes simplified descriptions of the stages of the W3C Recommendation Track Process. Definitive descriptions are in W3C Process Document, Section 7: W3C Technical Report Development Process.

  1. Working Draft (WD): Public Working Drafts are published specifically to get review and input from [interested parties] the community, including W3C Members, the public, and other technical organizations. Comments received now are most easily addressed.
  2. Last Call Working Draft (LCWD): Publication as a LCWD indicates that the Working Group believes it has addressed all substantive issues and that the document is stable.
  3. Candidate Recommendation (CR): The Working Group believes the document has been has been widely reviewed, all comments have been addressed, and it satisfies the technical requirements. The main purpose of CR is to gather implementation experience; that is, for people to follow the specification in Web development.
  4. Proposed Recommendation (PR): Is a mature technical specification that has been reviewed for technical soundness and implementability... each feature of the technical report has been implemented (and at least twice). PRs are sent to the W3C Advisory Committee for final endorsement. The W3C Advisory Committee is made up of one representative from each W3C Member.
  5. W3C Recommendation (Web Standard): has received significant support from the public, and endorsement by W3C Members and the W3C Director. W3C Recommendations are similar to the standards published by other organizations.

Something about timelines - perhaps minimums or averages across W3C.

WAI's W3C Recommendations (Web Standards)

For an introduction on how WAI guidelines fit in with Web development, see Essential Components of Web Accessibility, particularly the Guidelines for Different Components section.

Something about relationship and ATAG 2.0 timing with WCAG 2.0.