Call for Participation in UI Specification Schema Community Group

The UI Specification Schema Community Group has been launched:

The UI Specification Schema Community Group will define a common, implementation-agnostic meta-model for specifying the design, layout, behaviour, and constraints of user interface elements. The goal is to enable designers, developers, and QA teams to describe any UI component — from buttons to complex composites — in a precise, machine-readable format that can be validated and consumed by tools across web, mobile, desktop, and embedded platforms.

The group’s mission is to:

• Define the full set of possible specification fields (e.g., geometry rules, responsive behaviours, content constraints, accessibility requirements) that can apply to any UI element.
• Align vocabulary with related W3C efforts such as Open UI (anatomy, states, variants) and the Design Tokens Community Group (styling primitives).
• Produce and maintain a formal schema (JSON/JSON Schema) for authoring and validating per-instance specifications of UI elements.
• Promote interoperability between design tools, development frameworks, and automated testing systems using this common specification format.

Goals & Deliverables:

• A UI Specification schema defining core sections, property types, and allowed values.
• Reference example specifications for common UI elements.
• Guidance for integrating with design tokens and component anatomy standards.
• Coordination with accessibility, internationalisation, and localisation best practices.
• Non-normative documentation, test cases, and tooling examples.

This group will create specifications intended as input for possible W3C Recommendations or for adoption by other standards bodies such as IEEE or ISO for cross-platform formalisation.

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 2025-08-11 by Vasilis Danias. The following people supported its creation: Mahmoud Nabil, Vasilis Danias, Markos Girgis, Sergio Pereira and Spiros Grigoratos. 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 on 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