W3C Strategic Highlights: Future Web Standards

Future Web Standards

W3C has a variety of mechanisms for listening to what the community thinks could become good future Web standards. These include discussions with the Membership, discussions with other standards bodies, the activities of thousands of participants in over 300 community groups, and W3C Workshops.

There are lots of good ideas. The W3C strategy team has been identifying promising topics and invites public participation. Recent and under consideration Workshops include:

• Digital Publication Layout and Presentation (from Manga to Magazines), 18-19 September 2018, Tokyo, Japan
• Permissions and User Consent, 26-27 September 2018, San Diego, CA, USA
• Strong Authentication and Identity, 10-11 December 2018, Redmond, WA, USA
• Web Standardization for Graph Data, 4-16 March 2018, Berlin, Germany
• The Next Generation of Web Apps (Sakura)
• Color on the Web (WCG and HDR)
• Advertising
• Accessibility guidelines experience and updates
• Needs and benefits at the intersection of VR & Accessibility

The Strategy Funnel documents the W3C staff's exploration of potential new work at various phases: Exploration and Investigation, Incubation and Evaluation, and eventually to the chartering of a new standards group.

The Funnel view is a GitHub Project where new area are issues represented by “cards” which move through the columns, usually from left to right. Most cards start in Exploration and move towards Chartering, or move out of the funnel.

Public input is welcome at any stage but particularly once Incubation has begun. This helps W3C identify work that is sufficiently incubated to warrant standardization, to review the ecosystem around the work and indicate interest in participating in its standardization, and then to draft a charter that reflects an appropriate scope. Ongoing feedback can speed up the overall standardization process.

Since the May 2018 Strategic Highlights document, W3C has chartered a number of groups:

Newly Chartered:

• JSON-LD Working Group (7 June)
• Distributed Tracing Working Group (25 July)
• Chinese Web Interest Group (20 September)
• Immersive Web Working Group (24 September)

Rechartered

• Timed Text Working Group (30 May)
• Devices and Sensors Working Group (29 June)
• Web Real-Time Communications Working Group (24 July)
• Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group (8 August)
• Web Performance Working Group (20 September)

Extended

• Web Real-Time Communications Working Group (31 May)
• SVG Working Group (2 August)
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group (6 September)
• Web Platform Working Group (7 September)
• I18N Groups (7 October)

Concluded

• HTML5 Chinese Interest Group (24 May)
• HTML Media Extensions Working Group (7 October)
• Spatial Data on the Web Working Group (7 October)

Look for the next Strategic Highlights post on how W3C is Meeting Industry Needs