Meeting minutes
<MURATA> +present
<alastairc> Please to sign up in advance: https://
<heather> +present
Introductions
<kirkwood> Welcome back Janina!
CClaire: Hi I'm Claire from Taiwan, excited to join the subgroup for color contrast
Charter discussion https://www.w3.org/wbs/35422/charter-2026/results
<alastairc> Survey results: https://
<Gez> Can someone post the meeting URL? The one in the email doesn't work
<GN015> Meeting call-in and zoom information is at this non-public page:
<GN015> https://
[Rachael reviewed process and sent link to survey results.]
<Gez> To the zoom meeting. The page I end up on from the link is "This event series recurred from 12 December 2023 until 23 December 2025"
<Rachael> Results: https://
Rachael: Taking feedback, revise the charter, and send out for additional conversation or a second review.
<kevin> Officially, we are moving into the charter refinement phase
<LoriO> presetn+
WCAG 2.3 Scope
Rachael: different themes came up, first one is WCAG 2.3 Scope, people commented to define the scope and request for different pieces to be in there as kevin notes we're moving into the charter refinement phase
… anyone want to introduce their concerns around the scoping?
hdv: We (at Logius) would like to include WCAG evaluation methodology explicitly as a work item for the group.
<Wilco> Rachael do you want me to say what I put in the survey, or add to it?
Wilco: It's too vague, if we're doing a WCAG 2.3, we need to be explicit that that's what we're doing and that we understand what we're going to put into that before we decide on doing 2.3.
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on scoping 2.3, balance between things we know need doing and how they are done.
<shadi> +1 to Wilco
alastairc: In between saying what we're going to do without being restrictive on how it's done. There's areas in the 2.x series that could create normative updates. The main one is internationalisation and discussed at TPAC. There are several complaints about some of the criteria in WCAG 2 and how those don't translate to other regions, languages,
… scripts, especially around text-spacing.
alastairc: Some will need normative updates, working through whatever we come up with WCAG 2 should be relevant to WCAG 3 as well. e.g. it's around how you translate requirements such as CSS values from Western languages to others.
alastairc: We may need to create duplicate requirements similar to but using different values. Might have an external reference. Pretty sure we will need normative updates, which is a new version, it would make sense to resolve some normative issues that have come up recently about audio description, timing adjustable, etc.
alastairc: We have a default state— "no change" — any improvement on that should be time-boxed. Internationalisation aspect has priority and after that we can get an agreement on them that would go into publication.
<shadi> +1 to AWK
AWK: My concern is that the working group is not good at working on two things at once, especially when they are on impact, legal, or policy-related initiatives.
AWK: If WCAG 2.3 is on the table, I'd support it if it is tightly scoped to Internationalisation issues. I worry about it turning into a big time-suck for the working group. The audio description one is a thing in of itself. We won't be able to resolve that easily in the context of WCAG 2's conformance model. We need to be very very VERY careful about undertaking
that.
<Wilco> +1 you're not just talking about 2.3, you're talking about a 2.3 that's not backward compatible.
kevin: We need to be conscious of when WCAG 2.2 was published, there were formal objections on internationalisation, and we shouldn't downlplay active members' raised issues. In the last year and a half the WCAG 2 Maintenance Group has been able to do a lot of work. We need to be in a good position on balancing work.
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on time/quality/size aspect. and to comment on also time-boxing the WCAG 2.x work
kevin: There are other time aspects that need to be considered, but I don't know if this is as big a problem, however I did not see the work that went into WCAG 2.
<heather> +1 to Andrew
alastairc: I think it's time and quality that we need to be cognisant of and essentially it is prioritisation, and see what can fit in without taking big group time. Silver didn't take a whole lot of time but now it's the other way around— WCAG 2 Task Force that is a separate group of people from those working on WCAG 3 that should go in a
separate channel.
<Patrick_H_Lauke> +1 to alastair
<scott> +1 to alastair
<kirkwood> +1 to Gregg for problem statement (ti be solved)
<shadi> +1 to Gregg
GreggVan: What are we doing this for? And we should stay focused on what that is. As AWK pointed out, mission creep is common in this group and happens frequently. EN 301549 has gone out and we won't be able to affect it. If whatever we are doing is to fix this and that problem — we need to identify exactly what those are — and be critical
about tweaking things.
GreggVan: When you talk about normative stuff, it comes back to the main group and it has to spend a lot of time trying to figure it all out. I worry we are spending too much time distracting us from our core work if we don't tightly scope.
<Patrick_H_Lauke> critical ones off the top of my head: untangling (trying to) AD, nonsensical bits in Timing Adjustable, tightening normatively some aspects of Orientation, addressing the overlap between pointer gestures and dragging movement (this one MAY be handled informatively)
shadi: I don't feel we are underplaying the importance of the update. There's a lot of underplaying the effort and resources involved as we saw in WCAG 2.2 which was supposed to be a fix for 2.1 and AWK was chair at the time, as soon as something is moving to normative, it's not off to the side anymore. If the group does want to move towards WCAG
2.x, we need to be specific about what exactly needs to be done.
shadi: Text is very hand-wavy, we might need normative updates, but we don't know exactly what the issues are. Should be separate charter, separate working group with separate chairs, because we are behind on the current charter and it needs specific focus without any WCAG 2.x distraction.
<Wilco> +1
<Zakim> AWK, you wanted to say that non-normative changes don't consume oxygen at the rate that normative changes do, so the comparison to the past year's work by the task force are not a great comparison.
AWK: To respond to kevin, non-normative changes don't take up too much time while normative changes do — more concern within the WG about our ability to make progress with 3.0, what we hear in the survey in the WG is more chartable than what we hear from people outside the WG. It's worthwhile to be focused in achieving the most important goal
which is WCAG 3. (NB: "WG" = "Working Group")
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on focus for WCAG 2, and giving it 12-18 months, starting with i18n. Also, I never thought WCAG 2.2 was a "quick fix", it was adding more requirements.
<hdv> +1 to shadi's idea, would be in favour of exploring separate WG for WCAG 2.x changes
AWK: Many can be addressed within techniques or understanding documents, but it's hard to make the case that all these are important enough as normative changes that we should reroute some portion of the group's attention.
alastairc: It might be that internationalisation can be dealt with but I don't think anyone in this meeting knows how to solve that problem yet so that's why we need flexibility in the charter. This is also applicable to WCAG 2 and 3 so it's not a waste of time from working on WCAG 3 because it's a problem that needs to be solved.
alastairc: We fit the work within the charter, starting with internationalisation giving it 12-18 months to allow for publishing, and if there are other things we can fit in, we can default to what's there are the moment.
alastairc: On the point of it should be a separate charter/people, the best people who can approve it are in this group so I don't believe we should separate the group.
WCAG 3 Timeline
Rachael: Re: specific timeline in the charter itself.
… what do people want to discuss what's beyond the survey?
shadi: It's not just timeline but also milestones and success criteria. The current charter is supposed to develop that. What is going to be part of WCAG 3? What terms does the current charter use?
shadi: We're trying to apply WCAG 2 to other aspects of ICT, and we're trying to shoehorn WCAG 2 into everything, so we need a plan for 3 to address all these aspects and I don't believe conformance aspect has been addressed.
<Wilco> +1 Shadi
shadi: I feel it's not just adding timelines but adding in-depth understanding of description of some deliverables— what they are, how they fit in WCAG 3, and the definition of success of each of these and milestones along the way to make sure we're making progress.
shadi: WCAG 3 work has been dragging on.
alastairc: We have got to the end of the current charter and done what we've needed for that— we have subgroups and done work on accessibility-supported and various bits in there and charters aren't places to put the detailed success criteria. We have a timeline of what normative and non-normative documents will be worked on.
shadi: Charter has a section called Success Criteria that talks about proposed recommendation and charter should have success criteria, especially when things are drifting and starting to slip. Needs more scrutiny and care and we need better practices and be deliberate on what we do. Charters do need well-defined criteria.
AWK: Pile on shadi's call for adding more detail— whether that exists in the charter or not is a separate question. In the last charter we talked about exploring options for publishing in stages or modules and don't know what the conclusion of that at this point in time, and including a candidate conformance model. I don't think we have a working
conformance model right now.
AWK: Because of challenges on remaining focused on WCAG 3 as a collective, the result is greater scrutiny on how we're going to do it and when.
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on stages/modules
Rachael: There's a discrepancy of where we are and where we have slipped. We've stayed on schedule from our perspective. There's a difference in perspective whether we've slipped within the charter or not.
alastairc: The stages versus modules bit that AWK mentioned — we essentially need a plan whether we should take a modules approach. The chairs couldn't see a way forward on it so we're happy for people to propose things but didn't get to a position where we felt it was something we could take forward.
<AWK> Worth also observing that our progress within the charter includes extensions, independent of how well we met the expectations.
GreggVan: We're forgetting the 80/20 law — you can get 80% of the way with 20% of the effort — if we think we are 80% of the way done, we are only 20% of the way done in terms of time and effort taken. In WCAG 3 we have progress on getting ideas on the table but it takes time to get them into shape and I think we're underestimating that.
<alastairc> We got to "developing" drafts of the requiements inside the original charter time. The delay gave us time to convert into github, which is a one-time thing.
<shadi> +1 to Gregg
<Zakim> kevin, you wanted to comment on modules
GreggVan: If you have several controversial things, it's going to show up in the WG and will take more work to get the tough stuff worked out than it is to get the easy stuff pushed out.
kevin: Respond to AWK, there's work on viability of going with a modular approach — nothing cohesive came out of that as an approach. There was no easy way to break things apart and too many interconnections. There were maybe a couple of things that you can do in isolation but in terms of coming up with an approach working on an incremental
release, there was a presentation done after the 10-week cycle, it has been looked at.
Wilco: Follow up on GreggVan's point. Timeline concerns me more. To be able to get to Candidate Rec within 4 years, I'd sign up for that but I don't buy it. Most of work is still ahead of us. So many edge cases and exceptions to write. I don't see how this will be done in the timeline proposed and there's barely a timeline.
<AWK> +1 to Wilco's timeline concern
Wilco: We need better on delivering these last bits of the charter and coming up with clear decisions.
<Glenda> +1 to what Wilco is saying
s/we need to do better
Clearly call out Native app inclusion
<AWK> Perhaps a big requirements doc update is needed
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on timeline
Rachael: There's a request to call out that we're doing more than the web. The charter written right now does not stop us from doing that but it doesn't clearly make a statement that we will be writing it out. Doing so to also address native apps.
<AWK> There was Team A/B/C within WCAG 2.0 at some point
alastairc: We have a next 4 years timeline, but background on GreggVan and Wilco's comments, because everything is interconnected that it's hard to break things up and do one thing at a time. We have 54 people in this meeting and 9 subgroups working in parallel, but there are a lot of things to do but we need to get to the point where we get the CR
to maturity and people can start implementing it.
<Zakim> AWK, you wanted to speak to language in charter "The AG WG does not provide normative guidance on non-web technologies; however, informational guidance may include examples outside the scope of the web."
alastairc: On the native side of things, a point from Leonie that WCAG should be applied to mobile— should we be explicit on that?
<hdv> +1 to be explicit about native mobile, also in line with legislation including WAD, EAA in Europe
AWK: In the charter it says we do not provide guidance on non-web technologies so there is something that prevents us from defining actual rules which Leonie is asking for from a native mobile perspective.
<Wilco> actually sorry, this isn't on topic. I'll ask in chat. Do we not intend for the CR to be the final version, at least the version we think is final? Because that sounds like a departure from what CRs are. alastairc can you explain?
<Patrick_H_Lauke> ...and native desktop as well...
AWK: It's worth getting clarity on that, from a mobile perspective there needs to be requirements that need to be an adaptation of web when talking about what native mobile apps need to do. If it's not at the W3C, it should be somewhere… let us do this or set us free
<Zakim> Rachael, you wanted to react to AWK
Rachael: 1. I agree with Leonie and you. 2. The way that it is worded is the tightrope walk -- we are not providing normative guidance for non-web tech, the guidance should be supporting all completely technology-neutral and technology-specific guidance, it should be informative and supporting normative requirements.
<kevin> Wilco, the CR would meet the criteria of CR as defined in the process. It is basically ready for wide review and imprementations
Rachael: we can write for VR and mobile and desktops and kiosks. It's all at the method level.
<Rachael> s/1. I agg/1. chair hat off: I
GreggVan: We were trying to be tech agnostic, but we probably have third or more number of provisions that we need to create that we're not touching— as soon as you talk about physical things and not just web, there's a whole lot of other considerations, where there isn't a browser underneath it.
<Wilco> kevin can you clarify though. Does that mean we'd put out a CR knowing we'd likely make more changes to it?
GreggVan: Other domains could use them, but we're not actually trying to cover all those other domains.
<Patrick_H_Lauke> maybe subtle distinction here between "physical" and "digital"
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to comment on group thoughts for including mobile.
GreggVan: If you look at everything in EN 301 549 that doesn't refer to WCAG, then you can see that there's a whole bunch of other provisions that are needed.
alastairc: GreggVan's last point — there's a distinction between digital interfaces and the physical side of things. We're not going into the physical, but we shouldn't assume that there is a browser as an intermediary for the general requirements. There are things that we can drawing in the work of the mobile task force, WCAG2ICT, and other bits
where WCAG 2 is missing things, EN301, etc.
<kevin> Wilco, https://
alastairc: We need to get reviews from different perspectives to check on those requirements. Does the group feel strongly that we should be explicit about this — we've got requirements, and apply to web, should we be more explicit because that will need a discussion at the AC level.
alastairc: Do we think it would be beneficial to be more explicit that WCAG 3 should be applicable to things like native apps?
<kirkwood> yes
<stevef> yes
Rachael: Want to open up alastairc question — does anyone else want to call out topics you feel strongly about?
<Wilco> kevin I'm sorry, maybe I'm being dense here but the CR here says it'll happen after wide review. I just learned we're proposing to use CR for wide review.
<kirkwood> +1 to COGA statement
<alastairc> Noting for WCAG2ICt - the work there is applying the current one to AAA criterai, that's all.
Illai: Following what alastairc said and not in direct connection, would like to share a thought— effectively the regulations are asking mobile apps, manufacturers, and other digital media to comply to WCAG. I think we don't really have a choice because this is what regulators are aiming for. Industries don't have a baseline to lean on.
<kirkwood> +1 to Zeevi
<Patrick_H_Lauke> Yes, I was going to say ...the cat's already out of the bag. WCAG *is* being referenced by other piecesof legislation etc already
GreggVan: When we do the review, we need to do this as if there is no browser? Should we review all of those under this assumption?
Rachael: Yes
<kirkwood> so no “back” key
GreggVan: Are we also supposed to review so that it applies not only to web content, but apps, platofrms, and operating systems and browsers since they are all software?
<Zakim> alastairc, you wanted to react to GreggVan
alastairc: It would be a good note to include whether a basic requirement isn't going to work on this platform, or we'll be adjusting because of that platform.
Patrick_H_Lauke: There are other pieces of legislation point to WCAG as the de facto standard. We need some sort of understanding if we don't specifically define this for non-web content.
<kirkwood> but there isn’t anything else (that’s possibly the problem)
<Wilco> +1 Jon. How would we ever reach a "complete set of guidelines" with that kind of a scope?
<Patrick_H_Lauke> definitive set of requirements if they are generic enough shouldn't be problematic to apply to various scenarios
Jon_Avila: I think it's really the scope, it's another thing to say that we have a definitive set of requirements for mobile, or VR, and so on, and where do we stop and we start to overlap with other existing standards like EN301549. Would be good to have more mobile aspects covered.
<Zakim> Jennie_Delisi, you wanted to discuss expectations of stakeholders
<alastairc> +1 kirkwood, also there is a core set of user-requirements (as outlined in W3C's FAST and others), that we can use as a map.
Jennie_Delisi: I agree with the statements made about scope, especially considering the variety of types of mobile apps— what is in scope and what is out of scope. While it's not as important internally, it's important to external stakeholders.
Jennie_Delisi: Lines are blurry to those not in conversation. If you extrapolate the electronic document viewed within a mobile browser, it gets complicated and it speaks to what is in scope, what we need to test, and where is the boundary for creating?
Rachael: next step is to take these conversations and comments in the survey to create a new revision of the charter and take it back to this group
Rachael: if you have other thoughts, feel free to email the chairs
Rachael: we recognise we are hearing the same voices a lot in this conversation, if you don't feel comfortable speaking up you are especially encouraged to share your thoughts
Glenda: wanted to state I am very much in agreement with what Shadi, Wilco, Gregg have stated.
alastairc: which bits?
<Jon_Avila> Agreed that 2.3 will take away from 3.0
Glenda: we need more out of the charter, splitting 2.3 vs 3 is going to hurt 3 ever coming out within a reasonable timeframe. Also agree re cat is out of the bag regarding whether these requirements apply to native.
stevef: you said you mentioned WCAG-EM and other stuff… I didn't hear what the outcome of that was?
stevef: a number of us asked in the charter survey for WCAG-EM to be included
stevef: what was the outcome?
Rachael: it'd be great to hear your thoughts
stevef: it's part of the documents that are feeding into/from WCAG, not having it in scope would be like not having Techniques in scope
stevef: where was it before?
Rachael: I believe with EO
stevef: what would be arguments against it?
Rachael: scope and focus
<Ben_Tillyer> so.. add it to the charter..?
alastairc: I don't know if this is controversial, I don't think anyone objected to WCAG-EM being included when it was brought up, so it would likely be included
<alastairc> Ben - it's there to some degree, it's just making it firmer.
kevin: the bit that is not within our scope is maintaining the WCAG-EM Report Tool, that's probably the change I'd like to make to Hidde's PR suggestion
<hdv> s/kenneth/kevin
oh sorry
/me hahahah
kevin: WCAG-EM RT would be taken care of by team
Rachael: thanks all we'll be closing for now