14:01:01 RRSAgent has joined #atag 14:01:06 logging to https://www.w3.org/2025/12/19-atag-irc 14:01:06 RRSAgent, make logs Public 14:01:07 please title this meeting ("meeting: ..."), wendyreid 14:01:08 meeting: ATAG CG Meeting 14:01:23 date: 2025-12-19 14:01:23 chair: wendyreid 14:03:59 mgifford2 has joined #atag 14:04:05 Charles has joined #atag 14:04:23 present+ 14:04:45 dwestfall has joined #atag 14:05:03 shawn has joined #atag 14:05:03 thelounge has joined #ATAG 14:05:07 present+ 14:05:09 Miriam4 has joined #atag 14:05:09 present+ 14:05:10 present+ 14:05:16 present+ 14:05:19 present+ 14:05:22 present+ 14:05:22 nedzimmerman has joined #atag 14:05:35 scribe+ 14:05:37 itmaybejj has joined #atag 14:05:40 Saif3 has joined #atag 14:05:45 present+ 14:05:46 q+ 14:06:29 thelounge has left #atag 14:06:44 ack itmaybejj 14:06:48 q- 14:06:49 BjoernF has joined #ATAG 14:07:02 testing 14:07:28 mgifford2 has left #atag 14:07:30 wendyreid: *gets everyone up to speed with IRC* 14:07:37 Liskovoi has joined #atag 14:08:59 wendyreid: you can queue via IRC or Zoom, will keep an eye on both 14:10:22 Topic: Draft document 14:10:26 wendyreid: I have a pull request open for the draft document 14:10:34 mgifford2 has joined #atag 14:10:45 wendyreid: ATAG 2.0 is published at W3C in the “TR” space (technical report). I thought it'd be helpful for us to have a copy of our own, eg to make changes or adjust 14:11:24 wendyreid: most new W3C documents use a tool to make the document, usually respec or bikeshed. ATAG 2 is old enough to not use either 14:11:27 I'm back with irccloud.com (maybe it will be less of a pain. 14:11:55 wendyreid: so I converted the document to make it work with respec. Some links are still broken 14:12:57 wendyreid: *shares screen*. this is what the doc looks like. In the right top corner there's errors, currently 95 of them, they are mismatches for links / terms 14:13:08 Think this is the right link to respec https://respec.org/ 14:13:23 wendyreid: I fixed some of them already, for some I'm not sure if the correct term is being attached 14:14:03 q+ to offer help 14:14:09 ack hdv 14:14:09 hdv, you wanted to offer help 14:14:13 scribe+ 14:14:27 hdv: Happy to help find some of the errors and fix them 14:14:50 scribe: hdv 14:15:07 wendyreid: not pressing, but hoped to get it up there so it's easier to talk about 14:15:51 Topic: Deliverables / areas of work 14:16:03 wendyreid: this group was formed with the goal of updating ATAG 14:16:11 Is that Respec code up on GitHub yet? 14:16:23 wendyreid: one of the biggest drivers of this will be AI, and what it means for authoring tool accessibility 14:17:05 wendyreid: finding out what we want to deliver is going to help us put together the Charter, which we'll need to do for the group 14:17:33 wendyreid: we're a Community Group… we can write and produce documentation, but we can't update Recommendation Track documents. What we can do is incubate ideas and lay a framework for how we want to do the updates 14:17:47 wendyreid: at that point we can hopefully take it to a Working Group that can actually do the update 14:17:58 wendyreid: but the first part of it is incubation. It's the fun part, high in the sky big ideas. 14:18:20 q+ to consider version method before deliverables 14:18:22 https://github.com/w3c-cg/atag/pull/18 14:18:23 s/Is that Respec code up on GitHub yet?// 14:18:26 mgifford2: Is that Respec code up on GitHub yet? 14:18:28 wendyreid: yes 14:18:34 ack Charles 14:18:34 Charles, you wanted to consider version method before deliverables 14:19:31 Charles: I'd say there are some homework tasks before coming up with deliverables, like big picture scope. Does ATAG need editorial updates, modest updates, new criteria, an version update, like 2.x or are we making a new document? 14:20:01 Charles: with some of the discussions we had with shawn and others in WAI, we hope to align with WCAG 3. That's a big chance that will add a lot of modernisation to accessibility standards in general. 14:20:07 s/Charles/wendyreid 14:20:13 Zakim, draft minutes please 14:20:13 I don't understand 'draft minutes', hdv 14:20:17 RRSAgent, draft minutes please 14:20:18 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2025/12/19-atag-minutes.html hdv 14:20:34 Can we also do a minor release to support WCAG 2.x? 14:20:43 wendyreid: we spoke to the chairs of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group… we all want to coordinate with them, not work in a silo 14:21:02 s/Can we also do a minor release to support WCAG 2.x?// 14:21:31 mgifford2: Can we also do a minor release to support WCAG 2.x? WCAG 3 will take some time and implementation and requirement by governments will take longer 14:21:52 wendyreid: I'd say that's a good idea. I don't think there's a group that “owns” ATAG? 14:22:03 shawn: my recollection is that the current AG charter says that it can maintain ATAG 14:22:41 same q and concern as mgifford2. time is a big factor for staying aligned. 14:22:47 shawn: the current version says 2.0, it might be possible to do 2.x releases. I need to double check that 14:22:57 I wonder if we could make the existing one pretty and add techniques and test cases without revising the requirements. 14:23:06 https://www.w3.org/2023/11/ag-charter#deliverables:~:text=maintains%20errata%20for%20content%20developed%20by%20predecessor%20groups%20(such%20as%20Authoring%20Tool%20Accessibility%20Guidelines%202.0). 14:23:26 wendyreid: current charter says 'maintain errata' 14:23:42 shawn: the AGWG is going through rechartering right now, it's not too late to suggest adding to the current charter 14:24:09 shawn: we did talk about next generation authoring guidelines going into a separate document vs same document 14:24:37 shawn: what we perhaps want to propose… to have the next charter enable minor updates to ATAG 2, if we wanted to decide that as an interim step 14:25:01 q+ 14:25:06 ack hdv 14:25:28 hdv: There might still be time, they haven't discussed rechartering as much, there is room to discuss 14:25:42 shawn: depending on timing… can add it as an option rather than absolute requirement 14:26:14 wendyreid: I can also look at the Process to see how much of the change would fall under 'errata' 14:26:18 q+ 14:26:34 wendyreid: eg maybe changing references to WCAG 2.0 to WCAG 2 may just be errata 14:26:38 ack itmaybejj 14:27:15 note on AG re-chartering, the current charter ends 30 April 2026 14:27:21 itmaybejj: I wonder if it's worth looking at how much we can do updating techniques rather than the actual requirements 14:27:46 wendyreid: can be challenging to update non normative requirements without normative requirements too 14:28:49 shawn: I'll have to double check… the WCAG understanding docs aren't in TR space anymore so there's more flexibility… a community group could possibly publish understanding and techniques for ATAG 14:29:22 shawn: and they could be published on the W3C website. That's what the ARRM group does, a community group that mgifford2 is involved in 14:29:24 ARRM Link https://www.w3.org/WAI/planning/arrm/ 14:29:42 Interesting. 14:29:59 Our work in GitHub to push this forward https://github.com/w3c/wai-arrm 14:29:59 wendyreid: they would be Community Group reports 14:30:01 shawn: yes 14:30:31 s/ and they could be published on the W3C website./ and they could be published on the W3C website, if approved. 14:30:50 Liskovoi has joined #atag 14:30:51 wendyreid: I also don't want us all to get too caught up in the details of how the publishing workflows work… people like shawn on W3C staff are always super helpful to help us make it happen 14:31:08 wendyreid: there will be ways, so feel free to share ideas you have about what to publish 14:31:11 s/I'll have to double check…/I'll have to double check how this would apply… 14:31:35 wendyreid: there's possibly also work in improving the structure of ATAG 14:32:27 wendyreid: eg the first requirement of ATAG is to meet all of WCAG… that could freak people out as it is a very large requirement 14:32:48 wendyreid: possibly we need to consider a different conformance structure, as the current one is fairly complicated 14:33:04 wendyreid: and then there's different tools too 14:33:16 q+ to note Implementing ATAG https://www.w3.org/TR/IMPLEMENTING-ATAG20/ 14:33:23 wendyreid: and considering how we can look at the role of AI 14:33:23 ack shawn 14:33:23 shawn, you wanted to note Implementing ATAG https://www.w3.org/TR/IMPLEMENTING-ATAG20/ 14:33:49 shawn: there's also a document called 'Implementing ATAG', a bit like Understanding and Techniques 14:34:01 shawn: would that be a useful starting place, or not? 14:34:08 +q 14:34:20 There is a new thing in AI world they are called "Generative UI" which we can recommend including in an AI section. 14:34:26 ack mgifford 14:34:30 wendyreid: question for people here… why are you here, what are you hoping to get out of your participation in this group? 14:34:52 q+ Miriam 14:34:54 mgifford2: something I had wanted to work on… can we use AI to make a complicated process like ATAG simpler, so that more authoring tools can complete the process? 14:35:02 mgifford2: there's a huge barrier to entry to begin with this 14:35:25 ack Miriam4 14:35:29 ack Miriam 14:36:19 Miriam4: for WCAG, we have a lot of materials focused on specific topics like altenative text and subtitles… when I tried to implement ATAG at my place of work, content management system and education tools, it was hard to tackle it 'as a whole thing', there are not enough specialised resources and tutorials to look at 14:36:34 Miriam4: there's a lot more content for WCAG. And ATAG is seen as something to implement 'whole or nothing' 14:36:55 Miriam4: if it can be broken down in more parts in specific areas it could be easier to start implementing it and easier to make a business case 14:36:58 +1 Miriam4 14:37:10 Progress over perfection 14:37:11 Miriam4: and makes it easier to tackle one area at the time 14:37:13 q+ 14:37:15 [ shawn notes to self : ATAG missing the supporting material that WCAG has, e.g., tutorials, ... ] 14:37:17 ack hdv 14:37:48 hdv: Wanted to +1, great point, ties in to what I was saying earlier about meeting all of WCAG, doing that requires a lot of planning, breaking it down would help 14:38:53 wendyreid: earlier we were talking about different types of authoring tools and use cases… I work on an ecommerce site, the requirements are different from those for a government site. Same is true for different authoring tools 14:39:21 wendyreid: it could be a venn diagram, perhaps with a lot of overlap, but the focus is pretty different between different types of websites. 14:39:27 q+ 14:39:31 ack hdv 14:39:51 hdv: Totally, I remember now we discussed this during ATAG promotion, looking at different sectors and making examples for each 14:40:05 ... alt text in education, the text can't give the answer away 14:40:16 ... on a non-educational site, it's completely different 14:41:20 Miriam4: also think it's a good approach to make very specific use cases… or set specific borders on what a company is working on… eg if they make a CMS, do they tackle the developer side, or future customers, or the output… 14:41:33 [ these resources are promotional, rather than implementation support: https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/atag/education/ , https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/atag/social-media/ , https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/atag/no-code/ ] 14:41:36 q+ 14:42:18 Miriam4: we can show which parts of ATAG apply to which part of what they're working on, making the use case more specific. 14:42:56 shivaji: shawn, did you suggest we can make an implementation document or is there one already in existence? 14:43:12 q+ to clarify this breakdown of applicable criteria 14:43:13 shawn: it already exists 14:43:27 shawn: the best place to start is the ATAG overview 14:43:31 ATAG Overview https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/atag/ 14:44:37 shivaji: my other question: I had taken a task to do some research on AI and how it impacts different tools… what I found was that focusing on different areas, like Miriam4 and others suggested, would really help 14:44:42 ack itmaybejj 14:46:22 itmaybejj: was also thinking of the examples the ARIA WG published, it was successful and everybody started using it. Presenting things as examples, I could see us have a lot of impact. Most developers are in the weeds, rather than teaching them a lot, giving them 'here's what the HTML needs to look like' might be more appropriate 14:46:24 ack Charles 14:46:24 Charles, you wanted to clarify this breakdown of applicable criteria 14:47:09 Charles: we're still talking about deliverables, figuring out what's next. We have a lot of ideas. 14:47:52 Charles: a way to make ATAG easier to assume by breaking it apart in what's applicable and what's not, I think doing that by sector, is probably something we can't decide yet as we'd need to define what all those sectors are. Much like the market sectors in the original implementation report 14:48:26 Charles: perhaps the list of deliverables would help with our goal of simplifying ATAG 14:49:05 It woudl be good to have a discussion about ideas for simplification here https://github.com/w3c-cg/atag/discussions 14:49:06 s/would help with our goal of / could consist in coming up with list of ideas for / 14:49:11 q+ 14:49:14 wendyreid: possibly… I think use cases are really important for this 14:49:18 ack mgifford2 14:49:24 ack mgifford 14:49:32 mgifford2: we do have a discussion space in GitHub where we can keep track of them 14:49:51 wendyreid: yes we do have a thread for use cases 14:49:54 https://github.com/w3c-cg/atag/discussions/15 14:50:43 You asked why we're here -- I think I'd summarize for me as "plain language and examples" 14:51:25 Saif3: is it things we expect or where things are heading, or more what we have right now? 14:51:25 That's where my head is. I tend to be much less interested in the spec details than the implementation docs. 14:52:14 wendyreid: standards can take a while and it can be hard to predict the future, but we know there's trends. So there's an element of flexibility we want to build in 14:52:48 shivaji: re use cases… will we have use cases from tools like CoPilot or code generation, not just content creation? 14:53:28 wendyreid: yes, with use cases, not thinking about specific products but specific needs for a specific user group, eg 'as a user, …', 'as a teacher, …'. Have any tool in mind, but want to think about the goal and desired action 14:53:41 present+ shivaji 14:53:54 idea: a path to simplification and to include AI as a tool might be to look at ATAG by agency – things the tool does and has agency for; and things the human does and has agency for. this way the type of tool matters less. at least from an information architecture perspective. 14:54:25 wendyreid: I set up our meeting cadence for every 2 weeks…but have cancelled January 2nd. We'll meet again January 16th 14:54:27 Is there a similar group that recommends accessibility guidelines for software developers (non-training tools)? 14:54:54 wendyreid: this gives us lots of time to think about use cases… feel free to contribute to the open discussion threads or open a new one if there's something you want to discuss 14:55:07 wendyreid: Saif3, that's WCAG 14:55:17 note: i do not know github well enough to create a new discussion thread 14:55:28 s/Is there a similar group that recommends accessibility guidelines for software developers (non-training tools)?/saif3: Is there a similar group that recommends accessibility guidelines for software developers (non-training tools)?/ 14:56:20 wendyreid: WCAG 2 is focused on web content… there's no spec or standard for how to do everything in every language or framework, but there's like framework specific documentation that provides that. 14:56:39 Saif3: just thinking of scope, we don't want to go into software development if other groups are going into that 14:56:57 wendyreid: in general WCAG takes the overall, we're more narrowly targeted at authoring tools and their output 14:57:19 wendyreid: thanks all! 14:57:52 rrsagent, please make minutes 14:57:54 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2025/12/19-atag-minutes.html wendyreid 15:29:16 So what should go here, vs Slack? 15:38:38 Just meeting minutes :) 15:38:51 Since most people (myself included) don't have perpetual access to IRC. 16:00:16 present+ Liskovoi 16:00:23 RRSAgent, please make minutes 16:00:25 I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2025/12/19-atag-minutes.html wendyreid 16:04:38 rrsagent, bye 16:04:38 I see no action items