WAI Project Opportunities

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The Basics

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W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) work is largely done by individuals and organizations contributing through Working Groups and Community Groups. General information about contributing to WAI work is in Participating in WAI. We currently have several projects outside of Group work, and we welcome contributions to the projects described below.

We especially welcome volunteers from diverse backgrounds, including those who would benefit from having examples of their work publicly-visible on the W3C WAI website.

Timing and coordination: Some projects Need to be done in 2023, and others will likely start in early 2024. Volunteers will work in coordination with W3C WAI Staff Shawn Henry.

To apply as an un-paid volunteer for any of these projects, send e-mail to: shawn@w3.org and cc: team-wai-projects@w3.org (W3C-staff-only). Start the e-mail subject line with “[Volunteer]” and the project title from this page. If you are interested in multiple projects, send one e-mail per project. Include:

  • Your skills and experience related to the project
  • Your availability, including when you can start and how many hours/week you can contribute
  • Link to information about you online, such as LinkedIn profile and/or personal bio page
  • If you are interested in multiple projects, which ones

Accessibility Expertise Project — fairly big, on-going project

Skills needed:

  • Accessibility expertise developing with HTML, CSS, WAI-ARIA, and ideally JavaScript
  • In-depth knowledge of web accessibility requirements across different types of disabilities, and of assistive technologies
  • Understanding of accessibility issues across multiple platforms, devices, browsers, and assistive technologies
  • Comfortable using GitHub for simple edits
  • Patience working collaboratively to develop and refine proposals in response to iterative feedback

Time:

  • Flexible. Significant amount of work for a few months, then tapering off.
  • No deadline.

Thanks!

  • Your contributions will be added to the relevant WAI web pages.

Send e-mail (including the information requested at the top of this page) to learn more about this project.

Translations Review and Updating Projects:

Note: Translations work is on hold temporarily and will hopefully restart in 2023.

The "Translations Processing" project below can be done by people who only know English (not necessarily other languages).
"Content Review in Language" requires people familiar with the language of the translation for review.

Translations Processing — long-term project (only English is required)

Summary: Review translations of WAI resources, and help get them updated. (English required; other language not required.)

Skills needed:

  • Ability to compare similar versions and find minute ('my-NOOT', very small) differences in wording and in markup.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Able to do simple corrections in Markdown and HTML.
  • Comfortable using GitHub for simple edits, or interest in learning how.

Time:

  • Could spend as much as you want for a few weeks at least, then maybe down to about 2 hours/week.
  • No deadline.

Background: Volunteers translate WAI Resources. They have varying degrees of technical savvy and attention to detail. Most draft translations need careful review and editing.

Tasks:

  1. Review draft translations, and help get issues addressed and translations published.
    • Review draft translations for things you can even if you don't know the language. See Translations Reviewer Guidance.
    • Coordinate with WAI staff to submit corrections, suggestions, and questions to the translator through GitHub.
    • (optional) Follow up with translators as needed.
    • (optional) Help communicate the status of the translation, and help get reviews in the translated language.
  2. Help get existing translations updated.
    • Check if translations are up-to-date.
    • For out-of-date translations, check if English changelog is accurate and clear for translators. Help improve the changelog as needed.
    • Coordinate with WAI staff to ask the translator to make updates.
    • If translator not responsive, help find another and/or add the new content in English.
    • (optional) Follow up with translators as needed.
    • (optional) Help communicate the status of the update, and help get reviews in the translated language, as needed.

Thanks!

Content Review in Language — occasional small projects (more for French now)

Summary: Review draft translations of WAI resources. Translate small changes to English version.

Languages needed as of January 2022:

  • French
  • Japanese
  • Arabic
  • Korean
  • Brazilian Portuguese

Skills needed:

  • Familiar with accessibility terminology in the language
  • Native speaker or fairly advanced grasp of local language use
  • Attention to detail
  • (optional) Comfortable using GitHub for simple edits, or interest in learning how.

Time:

  • Varies by language. As of January 2022 lots needed for French, and a little for the other languages listed above.
  • Usually no hard deadlines.

Background: Volunteers translate WAI Resources. Some of the language is difficult to translate to accurately to convey the intention in the English version. Most translators appreciate input to help improve their translation.

Tasks:

  1. Review draft translations. See Translations Reviewer Guidance.
    • Coordinate with WAI staff to submit corrections, suggestions, and questions to the translator through GitHub.
    • (optionally) other tasks listed in previous project section.
  2. Update existing translations based on edits made to the English version.
  3. Work with others to develop a W3C-WAI-specific translations glossary.

Thanks!

Changelog updates to facilitate translation updates — small project

Summary: Update changelogs for resoures that have been translated, to support updating the translations.

Skills needed:

  • Attention to detail
  • Simple markup
  • Comfortable using GitHub for pull requests

Time:

  • Estimated ~3-5+ days of work
  • No deadline

Tasks:

  1. Review the translations listed in All WAI Translations (not the ones after Standards/Guidelines)
  2. For any with the warning symbol, submit a pull request to update the changelog. (detailed process provided when needed)

JavaScript — small-medium projects

Note: This JavaScript work is on hold temporarily.

Below are three initial projects. We also have some more complex JavaScript projects for later...

Translations - Navigation to Languages

Summary: Add functionality to the All WAI Translations listing to list the languages for easier in-page navigation.

Skills needed:

  • JavaScript and accessibility
  • Comfortable using GitHub
  • Patience working collaboratively to develop and refine proposals in response to iterative feedback, and building consensus among differing perspectives

Time:

  • Estimated 16+ hours of work
  • No deadline

Background: The All WAI Translations listing now has several languages! We want to make it easier for users to see all the languages and get to the language(s)that they are most interested in.

Tasks:

  1. Explore UI options such as:
  2. Process input on user experience, maintenance, etc.
  3. Implement solution we decide on.

Thanks!

Respec MarkDown Enhancements

The Respec spec generator has built-in support for Markdown, but that is only achievable through the include functionality. That puts limitations in the markdown you can use, for example for handling definitions, notes, and any other postprocessing functionality that rely on specific CSS classes or HTML elements that are not part of the Markdown format.

Rationale: The accessibility community has expressed their preference to use lightweight markup language such as MarkDown for document creation. Expanding Respec built-in capabilities to work seamlessly in MarkDown without the need of ad-hoc scripting would greatly benefit people's ability to contribute.

SVG — short project

Summary: Optimize new WAI SVGs (that are simple static icons) and provide guidance on using them.

Skills needed:

  • Attention to detail
  • SVG accessibility expertise
  • Basic HTML and Markdown
  • Comfortable using GitHub for simple edits, or interest in learning how
  • Patience working collaboratively to develop and refine proposals in response to iterative feedback

Time:

  • Estimated 8-16 hours of work
  • Would like completed in March, yet no hard deadline

Background: WAI has developed a set of accessibility icons (icons rough draft page). We want to share them and encourage people to use them correctly. We will probably provide them in multiple formats, somewhat like these WCAG logos.

Tasks:

  1. Optimize the SVGs (generated from Illustrator).
  2. Update documentation on using the simple SVGs on the WAI website.
  3. Provide the information on a webpage to share the icons:
    • Propose options for providing different versions, colors, and formats. Iterate based on feedback.
    • Draft guidance on using the icons, especially any specifics for SVG. Iterate based on feedback.
    • Finalize the web page content and icons in GitHub.

Thanks!

  • Your contributions will be added to the WAI Accessibility Icons web page.

Technical editing

Summary: Support transition of content from existing site architecture to new

Skills needed:

  • Attention to detail
  • Simple markup
  • Comfortable in GitHub
  • ...

Time:

  • Unknown
  • No deadline

Tasks:

  1. TBD


Design

Summary: Review and update design components

Skills needed:

  • Visual design skills
  • HTML/CSS awareness
  • ...

Time:

  • Unknown
  • No deadline

Tasks:

  1. TBD
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