Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG)
About the XML Accessibility Guidelines (XAG)
Status of the guidelines | Current
Work | Draft History | Related Work
Nearby: Issues | Changes
history | Translations | Reviews | wai-xtech list
archives
- The latest Published version of the XML Accessibility Guidelines
(Working Draft):
- http://www.w3.org/TR/XAG
- The latest Editor's draft (publicly available for review)
- http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/XML
- This document last modified:
- $Date: 2002/09/16 09:36:51 $
The XML Accessibility Guidelines are produced by the Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) as part of the
Technical Activity of the Web Accessibility Initiative
(WAI). Currently there
is a Public Working Draft and an Editors' draft which is publicly available
for review.
Discussion of the guidelines mostly takes place in the wai-xtech mailing
list. The archives
are available to the public.
The working group is most recently working on choosing which of the unresolved issues to resolve and incorporate
into a new editors' draft as a preliminary to a new public working draft.
From time to time the working group performs and publishes reviews of various specifications' conformance to XAG as a
way of testing whether the requirements are implementable and whether there
are existing techniques that should be referred to in the guidelines or
techniques. Reviews or partial reviews that meet the working group's criteria for required
information are welcomed at any time
The following is a @@partial chronological history of all
drafts published.
- 15 September 2002 Editors' Draft
- This draft was prepared as a proposed replacement for the 28 August
2001 Public Working Draft
- 17 June 2002 Editors' Draft
- This draft followed the April 2002 Face to face meeting of the PFWG.
Charles McCathieNevile began co-editing the Guidelines with this
draft.
- 22 October 2001 Editors' Draft
- Daniel Dardailler co-edited this draft
- 29 August 2001 Public Working Draft
- This draft was also available in an RDF form.
Other Resources
As well as the guidelines, there have been occasional presentations of XAG
or papers written about it (sometimes under one of its previous names).
- Extreme Markup 2002 Conference
- Charles McCathieNevile wrote a paper and made a presentation on XAG which
included a review of the DTD used for papers at the conference
- XML Europe days
- Daniel Dardailler presented the XML accessibility Guidelines at the
XML
Copenhagen day and the XML Brussels
day in late 2002
- HFWeb 2001
- Marja-Riita Koivunen and Charles McCathieNevile presented Accessible Graphics and
Multimedia on the Web - in part based on the XML accessibility
guidelines
WAI Guidelines
XML Accessibility Guidelines is part of a series of accessibility guidelines published by the Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The documents in this series reflect an
accessibility model in which Web content authors, format designers, and
software developers have roles in ensuring that users with disabilities have
access to the Web. In this model:
- Format specifications (e.g., HTML, XHTML, SVG, SMIL, MathML, etc.)
include features that support accessibility, such as elements and
attributes for alternative text, navigation tools, semantics that respect
user control over presentation, etc. XAG explains how to design XML
formats that include features to benefit accessibility. The principles of
this document apply for the most part to non-XML formats as well.
- Authors make use of these features when creating Web pages and Web
applications. The Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG) explains how to create more accessible content
through features offered by formats, and also through consistent design,
clear writing, use of multimedia, and more.
- Authoring tools help authors create more accessible content through
support of formats with accessibility features, and through interactive
and automatic assistance (e.g., prompts for accessibility features,
validity checking, reuse of accessible content, etc.). The Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines
(ATAG10) explains the responsibilities of authoring tool developers.
ATAG addresses the accessibility of authored content but also the
accessibility of the tool's user interface.
- User agents (browsers and plugins) promote accessibility by
implementing formats with accessibility features, and by providing an
accessible user interface, allowing communication with assistive
technologies, documenting accessibility features, following operating
environment conventions, etc. The User Agent
Accessibility Guidelines explains to user agent developers how to
create more accessible browsers, multimedia players, and other user
agents.
The requirements of making the Web accessible to actual users do not
always match this model perfectly. In all the guidelines there are cases
where there is a need for overlapping requirements to ensure that people can
in fact use the Web. These are sometimes due to particular problems in widely
implemented and used technology, and sometimes are provided as a "safety
net".
To implement XAG it is important to have enough familiarity with the other
guidelines to recognise a mutual dependency and be able to apply the
requirements successfully.
Other W3C work
There are other guidelines and specifications produced by W3C which are
relevant. The Architectural Principles
of the World Wide Web (working draft), the Character Model for the World Wide Web (working
draft), the Device Independence Principles, the
QA Framework and the work of the MultiModal Interaction Working Group are all relevant
to producing XML specifications (and non-XML languages) which enable the
greatest possible accessibility.
Work outside W3C
There is of course work outside W3C in this area. The following is an
informative but incomplete list of work in this area.
- Guidelines
for the Use of XML within IETF Protocols (Warning: This link is
unstable.)
- This is a work in progress, describing how to use XML within the work
of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org> - W3C Staff Contact