W3C

– DRAFT –
Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force Teleconference

17 November 2025

Attendees

Present
Abi, Charli, EA, Eric_hind, Jan, Jennie, julierawe, kirkwood, tiffanyburtin
Regrets
Rain
Chair
-
Scribe
EA

Meeting minutes

<Lisa> next item

<Lisa> ⦁ pull request

<Lisa> ⦁ send email to ag and apa

<Lisa> ⦁ Research modules wd 1 still need some formatting, recspec, citations authors and contributors

<Lisa> ⦁ are the contributers ok. https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-cognitive-a11y-tf/2025Nov/0023.html

Lisa has made a pull request before it goes to AG etc. - Background research papers - Research modules - first working draft - not final - plenty of time to make changes.

First step - went through different links Eric and Julie t approve - approval needed from AG and APA

Then it will be sent to their groups - may send out surveys etc. so will be sent to the chairs of the groups

So now working in contributions, minor formatting changes etc. so not huge amount of work.

check Acknowledgements

Lisa would like to merge within the main repository of GitHub before adding all the achknowlsedgements and references which can be in their own branches

Eric did not see the pull request but happy to approve

<Lisa> https://github.com/w3c/coga/pulls

Lisa may ask for help from Roy to get the citations working properly.

Rachel mentioned adding approval at the beginning of the meetings in the coming week - then follow-up with the chairs gaining approval from the groups

Julie mentioned asking about Tamsin and Simon about the intros - this happened at TPAC. Call with Matt tomorrow for a follow up

Sorry Sean and Tamsin

Still waiting for feedback from Sean and Tamsin - so need to follow up with them

<julierawe> FYI, Shawn is the correct spelling

apologies

<julierawe> No worries!

The task force cannot publish so documents have to go to parent groups for approval - depends on their feedback when all corrections have been made.

Rachael suggested asking for a review rather than approval - we may get concerns - things we can fix at some point and those show stoppers that need to be fixed prior to first draft. Shawn concerns raised about safety concerns and recent research related to AI and those with Learning disabilities

<julierawe> +1 to Lisa on making clear the two kinds of feedback we're looking for -- showstoppers versus things we can address later

Lisa had some concerns about citations but these could be discussed in the Thursday call.

<Lisa> next item

<Lisa> next item

Lisa asked if anyone had any updates from TPAC

Eric asked about payments and Lisa said that online line experts did not have to pay.

It appeared people did not have to register in advanced - could request a waver but most people seemed to attend anyway

Lisa suggested there needs to be some notification about possible wavers

Lisa mentioned that there were discussions about a different model for conformance

Lisa talked about issue papers that interested people and also there were discussions about people being will to take part in APA but can be complex as everything is in Github as separate issues - not as helpful for those you used to use Janina's wiki page. It can be complex as it is not always easy to see where the papers can be found.

Lisa asked if Eric was still our liaison with APA -

Eric offers to review items regularly and Lisa said that items can be shared with the list to ensure coga related issues are not missed.

<Rachael> FAST https://www.w3.org/WAI/about/groups/task-forces/fast/#contribute-without-joining-the-task-force

Rachael suggest that they will be considering using the FAST model used for issues

Lisa to follow up with Matt from APA

<Lisa> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ndRziXRfnyAgDaL8ctByQagDdM36H8QxV44lO3u8zgc/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.1sw3jym07njn

Lisa asked if anyone wants to check whether they saw the task force comments -

<Lisa> next item

Julie asked if Len could perhaps join a call to talk about TPAC

Need a different name to "Cognitive accessibility guidance" as too similar to other documents.

Julie said that the AG does not want our informative documents to be confused with normative guidance... John Kirkwood involved in one of the meetings - in one of the google doc actions.

Some of the ideas instead of guidance - strategies, recommnedations design patterns,

recommendations.

John Kirkwood liked 'best practices' as these is a phrase used in many documents.

Lisa feels recommendations that is more problematic as seen as being highly normative

<Rachael> +Zakim to issues with the term recommendation

Lisa other suggestions down grade it in that the phrases or words are not sufficiently strong - best practices may just be a preferred practice rather than a necessity.

<kirkwood> agree might be too soft

design patterns again just not something you have to do

<julierawe> Cognitive Accessibility Supports?

<kirkwood> in gov’t relm I have often seen something like “Best Practices & Guidance on Language Access”

requirements and standards may be too strong and design patterns is jargon. Need to be as strong as posssible

<Zakim> Rachael, you wanted to ask about motivation for name change

<kirkwood> “Best Practices and Guidance”? if we bundle it?

<Jan> What about "suggestion(s)"?

Rachael suggested that her comments are based on experience of past work on Content Usable - suggested you do lose recognition when there is a name change. Can't use labels that are similar to those already used by groups and WCAG cannot really be accepted

<kirkwood> makes sense

<Jan> I can certainly see the value of not labeling and focusing on the purpose - I think that would help people trying to promote these ideas inside of companies.

<julierawe> +1

Rachael also warned about not undermining what has been achieved - need to give a title of what the document actually does rather than giving it a label such as guidance.

<julierawe> +1 to Charli suggestion

<Jennie> * Was there a subtitle? Apologies that I cannot remember

Charli suggested supporting Cognitive Accessibility -

<kirkwood> Cognitive Accessibility: The Blueprint

Lisa pointed out that the new structure has less on incorporating the user and more for designers and developers etc.

<julierawe> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GwIadQU2rmDwqPDeYX6PF7UjnD4D47vqRjvPysXNe-A/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.dlcxb6p8f4s2

How do you translate the phrase "The Blueprint"

The new shorter title came about because of the long list of difficulties at will now appear in the subtitle.

So need a short hand phrase that emphasises cognitive accessibility

Lisa felt it would help to have Rain at the meeting - then continue to share the ideas and Julie has documented them

Jennie felt that it helps to imagine the use cases and who are the users of the document and how the title will help them undertand what it is they are going to be reading when the read the title - what would it mean to those who have not experience of this type of document.

Who has reviews this document previously and who wants to read it and who might never have heard of it previously

Rain has been carrying out research about users and what might encourage potential users of the document.

<Jennie> * search engine might crawl the subtitle, but can do things other ways too

It might help to have Making Content Usable somewhere in the subtitle

<Charli> +1 on putting "making content usable" in the Subtitle

<kirkwood> +1 to Name recognition

<EA> +1

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 248 (Mon Oct 27 20:04:16 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Active on IRC: Abi, Charli, EA, Eric_hind, Jan, Jennie, julierawe, kirkwood, Lisa, Rachael, tiffanyburtin