Meeting minutes
<wendyreid> date: 2026-02-13
Scope of work for ATAG (charter deliverables)
<mgifford2> hdv: started the discussion about the charter. what we we want to talk about within the next while. what do you think should be in scope?
charter template: https://
<mgifford2> hdv: what should not be in scope too? Charters define the scope and what we are trying to deliver. One thing we could try to deliver is an update of ATAG. Different types of guidance. Extra on-top of guidance.
<mgifford2> Jutta: asked if there can be phased in support. Last ATAG engagement was a while ago, so not sure if the Education/Outreach activities. Are the other materials done by other groups or by the ATAG Community Group.
<mgifford2> hdv: some of the things that EO was doing is not being done. Things like the ATAG Report Tool, was done in the scope of EO. The ATAG Report Tool is something that could be picked up by this group.
<mgifford2> Jutta: what is the relationship between the community group and if there is a working group.
<mgifford2> hdv: there is going to be some coordination within WAI. Anyone can join the CG, but the WG membership requires participants to work for a Member
<mgifford2> wendyreid: joined and thanked hdv:
<mgifford2> wendyreid: we've had conversations about where ATAG is at. Want to have a conversation about the CG and what it would look like if we chartered a Working Group.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: wanted to open the floor to what we want.
<mgifford2> Jutta: are we creating the charter for the CG or the WG? What should the joint standard look like?
<mgifford2> wendyreid: the charter can be for the CG, and then can be re-used for the WG when we are ready for that.
<mgifford2> @liskovoi asked if the charters were going to be the same.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: The charters are likely going to be the same. We announce that we're working on a charter, give the advisory body to review it. After it is announced, we will have to welcome external feedback.
<mgifford2> @liskovoi under what circumstances do charters change.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: charters rarely change because you have to ask to approve it. Charters are also generally for 2 years, so you can just wait till the next re-chartering. You can also write the charter in a way that is more flexible, so that we can allow ideas to evolve.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: don't let the chartering process bother you.
AGWG recharter in process https://
<mgifford2> hdv: AGWG's recharter - one thing that is in this charter is the AG Plans to maintain the authoring tools.
<mgifford2> hdv: is the plan for WCAG3 to include authoring or not?
<mgifford2> Jutta: Discussions with Canada's ASC, Authoring tools will likely not be part of WCAG3 as it hasn't been prioritized. There have been multiple points to include it, but that has never happened. The agreement was that this would be separately handled. Discussion about a joint charter with the ASC. There is now an equitable AI standard. ASC felt the need to proactively address this. Quite concerned about the inaccessibility of the GenAI
<mgifford2> tools. We were going to create an AI authoring standard. It would be good to do it in concert with the W3C. There are different processes, but both are transparent and open. Discussions at the moment are how do we create such a joint standard. Different group membership structures. The W3C members and invited experts. In the ASC there is voting members which are part of the committee. ASC regulations include the number of people with
<mgifford2> disabilities. Different member profiles, but ASC also allows for non-voting expert members. How do we allow for a joint working group. ASC has already approved an equivalent of a charter.
<mgifford2> Jutta: this was initially for AI Authoring, but it has expanded beyond that. The committee in the ASC met yesterday.
<Zakim> hdv, you wanted to ask if MOU is public, and if 'new work' means new version of ATAG, or AI-TAG, or contributions to WCAG3 or all of the above?
<mgifford2> hdv: Is the memorandum of understanding public?
<mgifford2> Jutta: It is still going back/forth. Almost complete. Some language differences. There will be some discussions at Zero and hopefully things will be resolved at that point.
<mgifford2> hdv: what does this new work look like? It could be an ATAG 3, building on what ATAG was and modernizing it. Both content and making accessibility of content making tools. Or is it an AI tag. How is it decided.
is this the ASC side? https://
<mgifford2> Jutta: Even the AI standard followed the ATAG-like format. Making sure that equity is included as well as authoring and results. Followed the ATAG 2 Part A/B role. Make sure the tools are accessible and the content created is accessible by default and supports people in creating accessible content.
<mgifford2> Jutta: ASC scope is similar to ATAG structure
<mgifford2> Charles: A community group is not required for a charter. And simultaneously there are a number of other overlapping targets in the charter. Would it not be a wiser step to not have a charter, or have a charter that was more for discovery work.
<mgifford2> hdv: Will there be a working group at the ASC, or is there going to just be one within the W3c
<mgifford2> Jutta: Ideally it would be a joint group. ASC has funding support. There likely won't be redundancy. A joint group makes most sense.
<mgifford2> Miriam: We should probably have a charter anyway. That way there is a basis that you can try to define, but maybe not have it be set in stone. Try out how it fares. What aspects are left out
<mgifford2> wendyreid: mostly concerned with the scope. What do we think we should do?
<mgifford2> wendyreid: we've talked to the chairs of AGWG. The consensus so far is that it might be better if ATAG went and did its own thing. WCAG3 is already big enough. We should determine what we want to focus on. One of the things we want is to update ATAG 2 to ATAG 3.
<mgifford2> There is guidance information on ATAG 2 - new ways to engage with ATAG.
<mgifford2> hdv: separate spec makes a lot of sense. WCAG3 is trying to make requirements doesn't matter who, just what. Trying to make sure that it is written in a way that it is the content author is good for PwD. Doesn't matter who removes the barriers. Kept asking about the charter. Will have to review the charter as well, as I will have to review this. How does it relate to AGWG, what value does it provide to members. Why is it relevant.
<mgifford2> hdv: we need to explain in the charter why it matters and why folks should invest.
<mgifford2> jutta - atag was always referencing WCAG. Doing it proactively rather than reactively. If no barriers were created. Large argument about process, not the outcomes. As things are moving towards more and more content. More content is being generated with AI, we need to be proactive.
<mgifford2> Miriam2: what I'm hearing scope-wise. need a section on ATAG 2.0 but isn't scope of ATAG 3.0. Maybe with those 2 sections, have some clarification about backwards compatibility. Maybe a section on overlap. Section about guidelines on atag and how to better understand role of developer and workflow. Maybe optional section about actual techniques and examples.
mgifford2: I wonder if we should look at talking about ATAG 3 … since WCAG 3 is happening we probably shouldn't jump to 'ATAG 3'
mgifford2: it may confuse people if we'd release it before WCAG 3
mgifford2: there are also interesting results from the We4Authors cluster a few years argo.
mgifford2: the website itself is gone but I recovered some via Way Back Machine
mgifford2: would be good to include those results
<mgifford2> Andrew: agree separating them. WCAG is the outome and ATAG is for the creators trying to get there. Agree in laddering what we know. I think that we can ladder toward POUR more. These authoring tools are not creating robustness. Daily in the weeds. WCAG is very technical, lots of poeple are creating content. Authoring tools make this hard. Authoring tools are not making it easy, we can do more to make them more consistent. We need to
<mgifford2> consider tools for folks who don't know what accessibility means.
<mgifford2> Jutta: the laddering process - the things that need to be updated - references to WCAG 2.0.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: counter argument to keeping it inline with WCAG3 (ATAG3) one of the problems of keeping in time is that WCAG3 possible publication 2030 (or so)? Over 4 years. We don't have nearly that much scope. One of the things we proposed is that there are parts of WCAG 3 that are clearly defined. The structure, how things are organized. One thing that is still open is the conformance model - they are actively working on this. If ATAG were
<mgifford2> to go out first, as a smaller, more constrained document, we could be a conduit. Help evaluate whether the WCAG3 ideas make sense. People aren't implementing it yet, so.. One of the awkward challenges we have with AGWG is responsible for maintaining the erata. In the W3C erata is very specific, things that are found to be inaccurate. We can ask AWGW to make factual changes, but may not be able to make others.
<mgifford2> Miriam2: I wouldn't consider a difference of 2-3 years as not in-line with the timing. I wanted to say in keeping it in the same timing, in the upcoming years, its basically version 3 of both standards that apply to you.
<mgifford2> hdv: should we look at removing the ATAG errata from the AGWG charter? It is a near future consideration.
<mgifford2> hdv: happy to help with this.
<mgifford2> Jutta: WCAG3 & ATAG - can you tell us more about what the controversies are, especially with regard to compliance.
<Zakim> hdv, you wanted to discuss conformane
<mgifford2> wendyreid: it isn't controversy as such, but exactly what the conformance model should be. We were kinda close but quibbling about details. If it is a room, arguing where to place the furniture. Still very-much in the air.
<mgifford2> Jutta: one of the things that has been going back/forth - whether the conformance should be on the page level or site level. this would influence ATAG. Plus overlay. Personalization questions. Are those still debates?
<Charles> the changes considered for errata: https://
<mgifford2> hdv: very recently 1-2 months ago re-started the conformance sub-group. 2nd or 3rd time this has happened. Didn't want to re-charter if we didn't work out conformance. Fairly complicated. We need more discussion on this. We roughly know what we want, but haven't figured out the granularity. Is there a scoring system that allows you to be meaningfully different and equitable. Can't just have one disability be X% and another Y%. Site/page
<mgifford2> is somewhat resolved. Page/view as an object of conformance. Could be a screen in any product.
<mgifford2> Jutta: there is a plurality abou thaving multiple views. Set of pages and set of views. Scoping a lot of the requirements to page/view and the whole compliance will comply. Could talk about for hours.
<Charles> current 2.x conformance is not only limited to a page, but it is also limited in time. it is a snapshot.
<mgifford2> Andrew: I feel like WCAG was initially thought of as a page. A lot of that can be built into views. Components go into views. WCAG is all or not. When I provide accessibility reports I use NN/g guidelines to the impact on the users. No navigation bigger than missing alt text. some critiera on the impact of users will have a bigger priority. Have worked to create accessibility automation tools, but they are actually components. Can we
<mgifford2> capture things that are components. Web development has changed.
<Zakim> hdv, you wanted to discuss components
<mgifford2> Jutta this was a debate open in WCAG 2. Do we address the whole site. Decided that WCAG 2 needed to move ahead and get released. There was a large contingent pushing to include this group of requirements.
<mgifford2> hdv: components have been discussed. Decided not to have them discussed in scope. Users will always react to process or page. It has been a long discussion, but need to talk about more than just pages. We are doing that within WCAG 3, but still figuring out details.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: We definitely want to be aligned, but we don't need to follow. Authoring tools should follow conformance, but products of authoring tools, we may need to think of them differently. I will take a crack at putting this into our charter. We probably do need to go to AGWG and have them take out the authoring tools from their errata. We can start working on the charter right away. The charter is right when the MOU is out.
<mgifford2> Jutta: Looking at the life-cycle of authoring. The prompting and education. Since we no longer have an evaluation/repair do we want to have an evaluation of the existing content and repair it. How much of the workflow are we going to address within this.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: we started putting together a use case. Education use-case. I am the educator in this resource. I don't create the resources, but want to make sure that they are accessible. Would be useful to have different life-cycles for different types of life-cycles.
<mgifford2> wendyreid: see you all in 2 weeks.
<Charles> i feel like publishing or distribution begins the moment it is available to anyone other than the author