Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

ATAG Conformance Evaluation Process

The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) welcomes additional ATAG conformance evaluations by authoring tool developers and members of the public.

Performing a Conformance Evaluation

In order to perform an evaluation, the reviewer should ensure that they are familiar with the following:

1. Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) and ATAG techniques,
2. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and WCAG techniques,
3. the operation of the authoring tool being evaluated, and
4. the accessibility best practices for all the tool's output formats.

The working group has prepared a draft conformance evaluation template (coming soon) to help reviewers organize their evaluations. The template includes instructions throughout as well as a necessary disclaimer. Please note that because the ATAG conformance evaluation is dependent on many factors, the template is quite lengthy and may take several hours to complete.

Submitting a Conformance Evalaution

The process for submitting an evaluation differs slightly depending on whether the reviewer is a member of AUWG, the tool's developer or a third party:

1. Notify the AUWG that you are starting a review (required only for members of the AUWG) - the AUWG will notify the developer.
2. Notify the AUWG when the review is complete - the AUWG will notify the developer and send them an electronic copy of the review.
3. The developer will have two weeks to respond to the notification - if no response is forthcoming from the developer within the two week notification period, a notice will be added to the review stating that no feedback was received.

When the AUWG Receives a Review

1. Members of the AUWG will be asked to check the review for accuracy.
2. Factual errors discovered by the AUWG or the developer will be corrected - the AUWG may refuse to post the review if it is found to be grossly inaccurate.
3. Differences of opinion between the reviewer and the developer will be resolved with the AUWG - if differences persist, the dissenting view will be recorded and linked to from the review.
4. The review will be posted to the ATAG conformance evaluations page.
5. The AUWG will periodically review the list of conformance evaluations, removing those that the group determines are no longer useful.

Last updated 28 May, 2002 by Jan Richards (jan.richards@utoronto.ca)