W3C

User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Charter

The mission of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG), part of the WAI Technical Activity, is to produce guidelines for the development of accessible user agents (e.g., browsers, media players, etc.): software that retrieves and renders Web content, including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, etc. In particular, the UAWG will publish the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (UAAG 2.0) as a W3C Recommendation. This mission is complementary to the work of other Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) groups within the WAI Technical Activity and the WAI International Program Office Activity.

The UAWG was first chartered in December 1997. The UAWG was rechartered on 5 November 1999, 5 May 2000, 18 December 2001, and on 1 January 2005.

Join the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group.

End date1 July 2011
Confidentiality Proceedings are Public. Some communications between editors and/or during implementation testing period may be member-confidential.
Initial ChairsJim Allan
Judy Brewer
Initial Team Contacts
(FTE %: 40)
Jan Richards
Usual Meeting ScheduleTeleconferences: Weekly
Face-to-face: 3-4 per year

Scope

The UAWG's scope of work includes:

  1. Develop UAAG 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation
  2. Develop Techniques for UAAG 2.0
  3. Develop UAAG 2.0 Test Materials to support the evaluation of UAAG 2.0 implementations
  4. Document implementation testing experience of UAAG 2.0
  5. Review and comment on the work in other W3C Working Groups for dependencies with the requirements of UAAG 2.0

Consistent with W3C Process requirements on Task Forces, the UAWG may form task forces composed of UAWG participants or join other W3C task forces to carry out assignments when under the chartered scope of UAWG. Any such task force must have a work statement (including objectives, communication, participation, and leadership) that has been announced on the UAWG mailing list, approved by the UAWG, and is available from the UAWG home page. UAWG task forces should produce requirements documents that outline the scope and expectations for work. Task forces may set up separate teleconferences and hold face-to-face meetings per the W3C process and with the approval of the UAWG.

Success Criteria

Deliverables

Milestones

Milestones
Note: The group will document significant changes from this initial schedule on the group home page.
SpecificationFPWDLCCRPRRec
UAAG 2.0 March 2008 June 2009 December 2009 July 2010 August 2010

Timeline View Summary

Dependencies

W3C Groups

The UAWG may also interact with non-WAI W3C Working Groups (e.g., CSS WG, HTML WG, Compound Document Formats WG, WebAPI WG, etc.) either via the Protocols and Formats Working Group or directly in the case of responding to requests for input on suggested user agent behavior.

Furthermore, UAWG expects to follow these W3C Recommendations:

Participation

To be successful, the UAWG is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration. Effective participation in UAWG is expected to consume 6 hours per week for each participant; one day per week for editors.

Participants are reminded of the Good Standing requirements of the W3C Process.

Communication

This group primarily conducts its work on the public mailing list w3c-wai-ua@w3.org (archive). The public mailing list public-uaag2-comments@w3.org (archive) is used for public feedback.

Information about the group (deliverables, participants, face-to-face meetings, teleconferences, etc.) is available from the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group home page.

Decision Policy

As explained in the Process Document (section 3.3), this group will seek to make decisions when there is consensus. When the Chair puts a question and observes dissent, after due consideration of different opinions, the Chair should record a decision (possibly after a formal vote) and any objections, and move on.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (5 February 2004 Version). 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.

About this Charter

This charter for the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group has been created according to section 6.2 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.

Please also see the previous charter for this group.


Jim Allan, Co-Chair
Judy Brewer, Co-Chair
Jan Richards, Interim Staff Contact

$Date: 2008/03/28 17:42:02 $