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Silver Community Group

Support the research and prototyping of the next major version of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This group may publish Specifications.

w3c/silver/

Group's public email, repo and wiki activity over time

Note: Community Groups are proposed and run by the community. Although W3C hosts these conversations, the groups do not necessarily represent the views of the W3C Membership or staff.

drafts / licensing info

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Stakeholder Job Stories
Silver Design Sprint Report

Chairs, when logged in, may publish draft and final reports. Please see report requirements.

Publish Reports

Discovering Silver Forum

We are launching this Discovering Silver Forum as part of the Silver Community Group website. The Forum is a place to share perspectives about accessibility guidelines and their role in creating inclusive digital environments. We will regularly post topics and invite discussion as comments or via the public-silver@w3.org mailing list.

Our first discussion topic is, What can we learn from WCAG adaptations?


One of the primary goals for the Silver project is to use evidence and data to inform decisions about the next-generation accessibility guidelines. The Silver Design Plan begins at the beginning, with questions about what is needed, and where there are opportunities to push forward using guidelines to support accessibility in the digital environment. In the Discovery Phase, researchers and stakeholders worldwide are working together to find answers to key research questions. From supporting policy and design decisions, teaching and learning about accessibility needs, conducting research and creating standards, and other stakeholder roles and activities, a broad range of perspectives on how accessibility guidelines are used will clarify what is needed to ensure accessibility guidelines are an effective tool for advancing accessibility.

To support work in the Discovery Phase, the Silver Task Force will regularly post research questions as prompts and open the floor for discussion. We will include your comments and perspectives among the research data, which will form the basis for Phase 2 activities of interpreting and synthesizing the data into insights to guide decision-making, as we move from research to concepts.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Welcome to the W3C Silver Community Group

Welcome! Silver is a Task Force and a project of the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG). While the main working group is focusing on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 update, a small Task Force is working on the preliminary research for a major update to WCAG. This new update is yet un-named, but it is clear that it will NOT be called WCAG 3.0, because we know that this major update will be applicable beyond just the Web. The name Silver comes from the chemical symbol for silver, “Ag” for Accessibility Guidelines.

Shawn Lauriat (Google) and Jeanne Spellman (The Paciello Group) presented on Silver at the CSUN 2017 Assistive Technology Conference. Their Silver presentation slide deck explaining the project is publicly available.

This W3C Community Group has been set up to support the people outside of the AGWG who are helping with Silver and the Silver research.

Call for Participation in Silver Community Group

The Silver Community Group has been launched:


Support the research and prototyping of the next major version of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).


In order to join the group, you will need a W3C account. Please note, however, that W3C Membership is not required to join a Community Group.

This is a community initiative. This group was originally proposed on 2017-03-02 by Jeanne F Spellman. The following people supported its creation: Jeanne F Spellman, Léonie Watson, Mark Sadecki, Charles McCathie Nevile, Doug Schepers, Greg Lowney, Michael Cooper. W3C’s hosting of this group does not imply endorsement of the activities.

The group must now choose a chair. Read more about how to get started in a new group and good practice for running a group.

We invite you to share news of this new group in social media and other channels.

If you believe that there is an issue with this group that requires the attention of the W3C staff, please email us at site-comments@w3.org

Thank you,
W3C Community Development Team