Last edited: February 21, 2007

  | UAWG home page

*** DRAFT ***
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG) Charter
*** DRAFT ***

1. Mission
2. Scope
3. Duration
4. Deliverables
5. Milestones
6. Dependencies
7. Confidentiality
8. Meetings
9. Communication
10. Voting
11. Patent Disclosure
12. Participation

Information about how to participate in the UAWG is available on the Web.

Note. Although this charter is available publicly, some of the links in this document refer to resources that require W3C Member access. This charter is written in accordance with section 6.2.6 of the 4 February 2004 W3C Process Document.

1. Mission

The mission of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (UAWG) is to produce guidelines for the development of accessible user agents: software that retrieves and renders Web content, including text, graphics, sounds, video, images, etc. In particular, the UAWG will publish the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as a W3C Recommendation.

This mission is complementary to the work of other Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) groups within the WAI Technical Activity and the WAI International Program Office Activity. The UAWG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.

The UAWG was first chartered in December 1997 (December 1997 charter). The UAWG was rechartered on 5 November 1999 (November 1999 charter, expired 30 April 2000), rechartered 5 May 2000 (expired October 2001), rechartered 18 December 2001 (extended through 31 August 2004), and rechartered 11 November 2004.

2. Scope

The scope of the UAWG's work under this charter is to:

1. Develop a new vesrion of UAAG;
• emerging technologies (e.g. AJAX) and the evolution of WCAG and ATAG are factors
2. Develop test suites for supporting the evaluation of user agents for conformance to new requirement of UAAG;
3. Track and promote implementation of UAAG;
4. Review and comment on the work in other W3C Working Groups for dependencies with the requirements of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines;
5. Collect information on techniques for implementing UAAG for a range of user agents.
6. Increase working group membership. (target specific members for specific tasks)

3. Duration

This Working Group is scheduled to last for 24 months, from 1 January 2007 through 31 December 2008.

4. Deliverables

The UAWG has completed work on version 1.0 of the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). The Working Group will continue to work on the following deliverables, which are :

1. Publish a requirements document for UAAG
2. Publish an updated version of UAAG
3. Publish updated Techniques for UAAG, which provides implementation details for satisfying the requirements of the Guidelines.
4. Develop test suites for user agents that render HTML and CSS.
5. Develop UAAG implementation tracking system
6. Minutes of UAWG meetings.

5. Milestones

1st quarter 2007

Publish Requirements document for UAAG 2.0

2nd quarter 2007

recruit appropriate members and invited experts for developing

4th quarter 2007

Publish Rough Draft of UAAG 2.0

3rd quarter 2008

Publish Last Call
Produce revised UAAG 2.0 Techniques Note.

 

 

6. Dependencies

6.1 Communication about dependencies within WAI

• The WAI Coordination Group is the primary conduit for describing and resolving dependencies between the groups that make up WAI.
• The Protocols and Formats WG (PFWG public page also available) is the primary conduit for describing and resolving dependencies between WAI groups and other W3C Working Groups. Consequently, requirements for dependencies between the UAWG and other W3C WG's are primarily channeled through the PFWG, and only groups with which UAWG requires direct discussions on dependencies are listed here. [editor, add ARIA]

6.2 Groups with which UAWG has dependencies

• (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WG: The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines rely on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines set set out best practices for authoring content;
  • The Test Samples Task Force is also relevant to the development of an UAAG 1.0 Test Suite.
• (WAI) Protocols and Formats WG (PFWG public page): The UAWG provides input on accessibility requirements with regard to W3C technologies for which PFWG manages dependencies;
• (WAI) Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines WG-- The two groups coordinate on common components of user interface accessibility;
• (WAI) Education and Outreach WG -- EOWG will assist in promoting awareness & implementation of UAAG 1.0;
• (WAI) Evaluation and Repair Working Group develop and track development of tools and documents which are important to the UAWG

The UAWG may also interact with the following non-WAI W3C Working Groups via the Protocols and Formats Working Group:

• CSS/FP WG (CSS public page)-- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in CSS;
• DOM WG (DOM public page)-- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements for DOM;
• HTML WG (HTML public page)-- UAWG will provide input on potential improvements to XHTML accessibility features.
• SVG WG (SVG public page) -- UAWG will provide input on accessibility features of an SVG display user agent.
• Device Independence Working Group -- UAWG and DIWG will coordinate to ensure consistent approaches on guidelines development and on CC/PP (Composite Capability Preferences Profile);
• Multimodal Interaction Working Group -- UAWG and MMI WG will coordinate to ensure consistent approaches.
• Voice Browsing WG (Voice Browser public page) -- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in Voice Browsing.
• Compound Document Framework WG -- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in Web Integration Compound Document (WICD)
• Web APIs WG -- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in APIs
• Ubiquitous Web -- UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in Device Coordination

7. Confidentiality

The UAWG is a public Working Group as defined by Section 4.1 of the W3C Process Document. The Working Group maintains a public mailing list at w3c-wai-ua@w3.org.

8. Meetings

The Working Group meets weekly via teleconference, and once or twice per year face-to-face.

9. Communications

The Working Group will make use of the following communication mechanisms:

• A public mailing list: w3c-wai-ua list;
• A public home page;
• Remote meetings every other week; other meetings when necessary;
• Approximately one to two face-to-face meetings per year;
• Coordination with other WAI groups, facilitated by the WAI Coordination Group (WAI CG);
• Communication with other W3C groups through the Chairs mailing list (Member-only), through the Protocols and Formats Working Group, and through WAI Domain liaison to the Hypertext Coordination Group (Member-only);
• Communication with the public through Working Draft releases and Education and Outreach Working Group work.

10. Voting

The primary means of decision-making in the UAWG is consensus. This charter is written in accordance with Section 3.4, Votes of the 5 February 2004 W3C Process Document and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

11. Patent Disclosure

The UAWG provides an opportunity to share perspectives on Web accessibility. W3C reminds UAWG participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. While the UAWG does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when UAWG participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply.

Please note that the proceedings of UAWG (mailing list archives, minutes, etc.) are publicly visible.

12. Participation

The UAWG welcomes participation from W3C Member organizations, and also invites experts from disability organizations, accessibility researchers, assistive technology developers, government organizations, and others interested in promoting accessibility in Web-based user agents.

Member and Invited Expert participation

Participants are expected to observe the requirements of the Section 6.2.1.7 of the 4 February 2004 W3C Process Document.

For this Working Group, the following commitment is expected:

• Minimum 4 hours per week, including meeting time and reading/responding to mailing list;
• Remain current on the w3c-wai-ua mailing list (mailing list archive) and respond in a timely manner to postings on mailing list;
• Participate in remote meetings or send regrets to Chair;
• Participate in face-to-face meetings or send regrets to the Chair;
• Remain aware of related work in other WAI Working Groups.

W3C Team participation

• 40% TBA
• Judy Brewer - WAI Director, 5%

How to Join the Working Group

Information about how to participate in UAWG is available on the Web.

Copyright © 1994-2006W3C^® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance with our public and Member privacy statements.