WEBVTT slide-1 00:00.000 --> 00:09.000 Good afternoon, I'm Shawn Lawton-Henry and I'm going to share some information with you about the accessibility program at W3C. slide-2 00:09.000 --> 00:23.000 First, I want to talk about harmonizing global standards, primarily around W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG, which we pronounce WCAG. 00:23.000 --> 00:31.000 We're pleased to share that WCAG is now an ISO standard. It's ISO IEC 40500. 00:31.000 --> 00:41.000 And that's particularly important because now countries that can adopt WCAG 2.2 as the ISO standard. 00:41.000 --> 00:54.000 We're also working with EN301549, which is a standard used with the European Accessibility Act, or EAA, which a lot of you are familiar with because it also has global impacts. 00:54.000 --> 01:05.000 That is being updated for WCAG 2.2. And we're also working in coordination to update our WCAG2ICT, 01:05.000 --> 01:12.000 which talks about applying WCAG in different technologies, including non-web documents, software, etc. 01:12.000 --> 01:21.000 We continue to work on harmonizing global standards in different regions and countries, such as Africa and others. 01:21.000 --> 01:29.000 An important note when we're talking about standards is that the accessibility standards play an important role, 01:29.000 --> 01:33.000 but the goal of accessibility is not to meet the standards. 01:33.000 --> 01:41.000 The goal is to improve the user experience of people with disabilities, and standards are one aspect of that. 01:41.000 --> 01:51.000 And we also provide guidance and resources to encourage a user-centered approach to accessibility. slide-4 01:51.000 --> 01:53.000 Another area we've been working on is training. 01:53.000 --> 02:01.000 We have an existing accessibility course, which will be available through March of 2026, and we're working on new courses. 02:01.000 --> 02:15.000 The new Accessibility Fundamentals course has information that applies broadly to technology, so not just for websites and apps, but even documents or presentations or emails. 02:15.000 --> 02:30.000 We will also provide an updated course on WCAG 2.2, and we're exploring potentially other courses, such as evaluating accessibility, and some mini courses on specific topics. slide-5 02:30.000 --> 02:35.000 We continue our work on translating accessibility resources. 02:35.000 --> 02:47.000 We currently have 30 W3C authorized translations, primarily of WCAG, over 150 translations of our supporting and educational resources. 02:47.000 --> 02:54.000 And you can find a list of those 35 languages and the resources in the All WAI Translations page. 02:54.000 --> 03:00.000 In 2026, we'll be working on updating translations policies and procedures. 03:00.000 --> 03:07.000 One important aspect of that will be the W3C-wide authorized translation policy. 03:07.000 --> 03:15.000 And we always welcome your help with translations, and also reviewing draft translations. slide-6 03:15.000 --> 03:17.000 We're exploring several other areas. 03:17.000 --> 03:30.000 One of them is updating W3C's Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, or ATAG, and that work is currently being incubated in the ATAG Community Group. 03:30.000 --> 03:35.000 We're also looking at coordinating on accessibility testing. 03:35.000 --> 03:46.000 One aspect of that is the support and interoperability between assistive technologies, such as screen readers, browsers, and other technology. 03:46.000 --> 03:56.000 And we want to work on coming together to document that well, so that it will, number one, encourage improvements, 03:56.000 --> 04:02.000 and number two, will provide information for developers and designers. 04:02.000 --> 04:13.000 Another aspect of the accessibility testing coordination is testing for WCAG, both WCAG 2 now and WCAG 3 as we move forward. 04:14.000 --> 04:24.000 There's several accessibility community groups, or CG's, that are doing a lot of great work that is feeding into the working groups 04:24.000 --> 04:34.000 and the resources that we provide on the W3C website, such as ARRM, which is the accessibility roles and responsibilities matrix 04:34.000 --> 04:38.000 that helps organizations implement the accessibility. 04:38.000 --> 04:45.000 Great, so now I'm going to turn it over to Kevin White, and he'll tell you about the working group work, 04:45.000 --> 04:51.000 and close up with some ways that you can contribute to accessibility at W3C. 04:51.000 --> 04:52.000 Thanks.