W3C Accessibility Work Priorities for 2024 and Beyond
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shawna_slh: Great. Thank you. So first of all, I'm just gonna give a little bit of context. And this link is in the meeting information and the agenda.
… It's the the one that that's in slash 2023. And I'm also displaying for those who can
… see display. But it's on a page. So it's easy to get to. So just briefly, I wanted to point out one of the exciting things is that with Inc accessibility is really woven throughout the fabric of the organization. So you can see that. And the mission, the vision.
… the press release announcing it and website. And the very top accessibility is featured prominently in the list of principals.
… And we did decide to keep the way. Brand web accessibility, initiative, Wii, because it has so much
… you know recognition. But the exciting thing is it really is is well integrated.
… Just to make sure. You know who we are these days. We're very strongly collaborative team working well with the group that we do have a group that still focuses on accessibility as well as integrating throughout. So my name is Shawn Henry, and I'm a way program. Lead also still, lead communication and education.
… You've met Kevin White. He leads the technical accessibility work oversight of the working groups managing, and W. Threec. Accessibility and and lots of other hats. Oh, and right now also the accessibility guidelines
… contact. Roy had to be in supporting another meeting. He supports several working groups
… and as well as accessibility in China.
… and Danielle is back there. Wave Danielle also supports. He mentioned the working group. He supports, in addition to standards, harmonization, particularly in Europe and testing. And again, it's helping support to B 3 C accessibility.
… We also have a new position. Open. We opened it announced at Friday, and applications close next Tuesday. So please, if you know somebody who might be a good fit for that. Encourage them to to let us know. We are very hopeful that we'll have a good candidate who represents diverse group perspective.
… Just briefly,
… in 2023. We really have focused a lot on keeping things going through transitions. Several of you know that we've had several staff transitions. Including Kevin came back last year. He'll be celebrating. I checked. It's in October one year.
… So as the main thing we've been doing is keeping things going things like the Wcag web content, accessibility guidelines, 2.2 one of the things we've been able to re
… up is our work on translations, and there's just a lot more going on. So we encourage you to subscribe to the announce list. There's a. We also update the way news.
… I still have to put the new position on there. And then we also have a monthly Update of what we're working on. So you can check on that.
… But what we wanted to do today is work on this strategic planning. So we are one of the issues is, there's so many interesting, important things to do in accessibility and things that can fit within potentially fit within the per view. And we can't do it all well.
… So one of the things we wanna do better at is really defining what our priorities are getting agreement among the community. What what the parties are, and focusing on those priorities.
… So we have a draft that we started looking at the mission, the vision, the objectives, the broad objectives for now. And it's important to understand that that
… extends the W Threec. Mission and vision. So it's not separate. It just extends it. So it's more details on the accessibility work. The one of the the some of the reasons that we are spending, the the effort to do that is to just define and document commitment to accessibility.
… to encourage support for accessibility through work through, see? So to encourage members to provide people to help potentially to incur, encourage additional funders and things like that.
… and then to direct the staff effort to the agreed upon priorities, as I mentioned before.
… So that's what we're doing.
… We have, started several discussions in Github for where you can share your ideas, and we'll talk about some of those today, so I won't go over the list, because here, because it looks like some people have upvoted several things. So feel free. If you are multitasker to pop over to Github discussions and upvote the ones you want to talk about today.
… yeah, okay. So that's kind of the the basics. The first thing. I want to open it up for is.
… are there any general comments on
… accessibility at and way that anyone would like to share?
… And, Kevin, could you queue? Could you manage the queue? And if there's Irc, or if there's in person, you can just physically raise your hand.
Prado: Yep, that's fine.
… Everybody's happy for the moment.
shawna_slh: That's good. That's good. Okay. I wanna jump over to what we have. As our the start of the accessibility mission vision
Prado: and it's joined with you. I'm no.
… maybe take a conversation. Yup. No, no perfect one. What one thing I
… I'm noticing in how way has strategically organized itself. Is that a lot of it is focus on
… kind of 2 pillars. 1 one is, or maybe to pass. One is focused on guidelines. Explaining guidelines, writing more guidelines,
… content, offering tools whatever and the other thing on adding features to
… mostly HTML and make building more capabilities
… for developers to make things accessible.
… What I'm maybe missing in that vision
… is maybe a third path which I would love to see way, explore and look into a little bit, which is to figure out, how do we make the web as is more accessible by default? How do we make
… browsers more robust? What could browsers do to be more robust and full tolerance when things aren't built perfectly. No, no, I think that's reasonable. I'm certainly
… that I mean sorry, shaun.
… II think that that that sense of to it I mean, you're you're flagging browsers there, but it's not surprising. It's I agree. I mean, it's looking at. And I think we spoke about this briefly in the overlays discussion. It's where where's best place to solve the problem, and how do we? How do we kind of encourage solving that problem in that place. I think that's maybe what I would take away from that
… Sean.
shawna_slh: Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things that I think that we
… we have in our objectives somewhat, but but definitely hasn't been a priority, and I'm eager for us to talk about what that would look like. Related to that
… also is
… what what are some quick wins we could do.
… For example, if we got the browsers to do. X. Then that would simplify a whole bunch of other things that we need to do. So. Yeah, recorded
… good point. I think some of the what it would be. It's it. I appreciate the high level comment definitely, Wilco. And I think it would be good also for us to explore. Okay, what does that mean? If we if we focus on that, what is what are some of the specific things that we do, and that might fit into some of the discussion points, or something that's missing from our the objectives we have here. So
Prado: hey?
… And I think we're supposed to be
… in in terms of specific examples. I I don't think.
shawna_slh: keep. Let's
… definitely get some specific examples. Let's see if they fall into some of the discussion that we have
… throughout this hour, and if not, then let's follow up on them. Does that work.
Prado: So to give one idea? Focus has always been a problematic thing. Browsers and system policies do technical focus.
shawna_slh: Great. helpful to have that sample.
Prado: Does anybody have any other points on that one?
… Lionel? Is this is this what you're on queue for? Or, yeah, yeah, okay, if you're look, this is a very high level meeting. But you're asking for specific ideas, and one that we're very excited about is well known. Urls
… problem reporting on accessibility could be supported by a well known URL where the problem could go back to the company or could go back to some kind of problem aggregator. And that's something we're working on in. Apa.
… I could.
… And and Shadi, you're on cue. Got it?
Shadi Abou-Zahra: Yeah. An another thought I had re reading, this is There's desktop. And then mobile Apps added.
… but I wonder are you considering other interfaces, voice interfaces, for example, or other types of I don't know.
… closed systems that are might not be traditional web mobile apps as such they could be. I'm thinking about a television. For example, I'm thinking about a coffee machine. I'm thinking about an information kiosk
… or
… Yep.
… you know. Yeah. And these are very often web based. And there's a lot of work in working with ICT, II understand that. But the question is
… it? It seems to be just thinking about desktop and then mobile apps
… but not thinking about the breadth of interfaces that there might be let alone augmented reality or whatever.
shawna_slh: Yes, there's a discussion that's poorly worded, Kevin pointed out. So there's a discussion that says, scope.
… yeah, scope of web digital accessibility. What is that?
… So I encourage you to put thoughts in there.
… And maybe I'll figure out how to word it better, so that it's clear that that was where we where I was hoping to gather input on that type of thing. It's a question, the answer. We don't have an answer yet.
… it's an open question. So I look forward to yours and other thoughts on that.
Prado: Well, we can test. And so I don't know. We want to explore that as well.
shawna_slh: Yeah, one of our challenges is, we have so many
… urgent things that we need to do right now, and we need to be horizon scanning. We need to be aware of what's what's coming up.
… So I would say, II wanna be. I wanna be able to do both of those things. And there is an open issue about. I think there's an issue around horizon scanning. Or maybe that was just.
… And and in our objectives.
… yeah, but it's
Prado: definitely something we need to look at as as well. Thanks, John. So just going back to. Shati.
Shadi Abou-Zahra: I have some comments on the overall framing of these objectives. I is, is that the right time? Or do you want to discuss that later?
shawna_slh: No, I was gonna move over to that. So and there's is there others in queue or not? Yet
Prado: is one
… there are already other standards like Europe. Is is there an advantage to doing stuff that Europe is already doing? Or might we just let Europe be the defective global stand? That's a fair question, right? I don't know. The answer to that
… one way I would think I would propose thinking about it is that you know what we have been doing is what will. Wicc, for example, is doing everything about web
… and nothing about hardware, let's say. But I would propose there. There is a possibility of doing a little bit about hardware without thinking that we have to do as much of everything that we have done did not. There's possibility of doing things that are relevant yet less thorough
… something to consider. That's it. Okay? And you've added a comment on that one. Thank you.
… Anything else. Initial priorities, piece discussion. Obviously we can come back this. It's not event. It's not post this year or anything.
shawna_slh: Yep.
… so we'll jump into some of those specific discussions. But I wanted to get to. What Shady was mentioning. So we do again, we have a draft of mission and vision statement. This is an ideal. It's not where we are. Yes, but but that ideal for vision. And then some high level objectives. And again, we're still working on refining all this but
… and you can look at it online. That size is
… here on here as well. But there was a link in the agenda to this resource. So I would say, yeah, city comments on the High level objectives. Chris Ann, can you mute just a Chris Ann, could you mute?
Kris Anne Kinney: I'm sorry I didn't know I wasn't.
shawna_slh: That's okay.
Shadi Abou-Zahra: Yeah. So just just the overall way these are put together. Not necessarily the content. There's international standards. And then, later on, there's specifications and standards.
… and then II feel the. And then in the international, there's you know, standard harmonization. And later, there's understanding and adopting and implementing accessibility. So it just feels that the international aspect is
… doesn't really fit in
… at the very top as much. And also along with that, I feel the
… facilitate international multi stakeholders. Development. Standard development facilitates. I'm I'm not a native English speaker, but facilitate. Sounds a bit weak to me. Ii think you know the the
… think. The cornerstone of standards organization is to ensure the development of high quality standards that can be adopted. And then, later on and that includes maybe internationalization. But it's
… or or global harmonization. But I think you know, in the first I feel the priority is a bit backwards. Here. II think it's really.
… you know, making sure we we have these core standards that we can use
… And then. you know, promoting and educating and translating, etc.
shawna_slh: Yeah, that was actually a last minute change?
… So yeah, okay, thanks. Got duly noted. We'll change back
… but then also heard the priorities, but also just stronger than facilitate international standards.
Prado: Good. alright.
shawna_slh: So
… again we welcome. We're not looking at words missing at this point. But we welcome any specific input or high level input or specific input on that as well. But what we want to spend
… the rest of our time together on today is the discussions.
… So I noticed, thank you, that some people have
… upvoted those. Some of those so feel free to upvote. Does anyone know? Can I tell? Can we tell who upvoted things
Prado: be able to click on each topic?
shawna_slh: Now, right here there's 5 people who upvoted without commenting.
… anyway, hopefully, some
… darn
… okay? So actually, feel free. If you want to jump in and upvote if you go to a a topic and a discussion topic, and you can press the arrow to upvote it.
… And we'll use that to decide what we want to talk about next. So in the the top up votes right now is improving accessibility guidelines guidance.
… So let's spend some time talking on that. I'll give you a minute to excuse me to skim the starter discussion there.
… and just jump in cue or raise your hand when you're ready.