Re: [important] combined RDWG and APA WG charters

Hi all

I’ve finally had some time to read this, and while it would be disappointing if RDWG is not be able to continue as a standalone activity, I can see the logic behind this approach, given the focus of collecting and providing expertise on people with disabilities to W3C activities. The relationship between discovery of knowledge and other W3C activities is much stronger, and there is a more direct link between participation and impact of participation, which might be attractive to academic participants especially.

I share Jason’s concerns about the potential loss of the Tips for Accessibility Aware Research (TAAR) Note, not simply because I’ve been involved in work on it up to now(!).

The proposed TAAR Note could be seen as applying (indirectly at least) to several items in the proposed scope, namely:
* Explore trends in accessibility research and development to identify areas of research (existing or absent) that may significantly impact accessibility of the Web, and maintain a catalog of research challenges on key topics, and publish brief reports and summaries as appropriate to inform W3C membership of research-based recommendations for addressing key issues identified; 
* Identify gaps in the technical foundation of W3C technologies and propose solutions with other Working Groups or via new technical work;
* Provide concrete guidance about how to ensure technical specifications appropriately support accessibility;
* Advocate creation and reuse of common implementations of functions that are required by accessibility;
* Strategize solutions within W3C and via liaisons with external organizations.

If it’s one thing the new group can do to help researchers take advantage of existing accessibility knowledge in their work on defining and developing emerging web technologies, and avoid introducing potentially significant accessibility challenges, then we should do it.

Like Jason, I do also recognise that it may seem to be more aligned with EOWG activities, although I’ve always felt (possibly misguidedly) that their remit is on giving web content *designers and developers* accessibility knowledge. So it’s not clear to me how visible an EOWG Note would be that's intended for researchers and organisations that fund or otherwise influence research agendas—but maybe it’s just a question of effective publicity.

Hope this helps.
Dave

David Sloan

UX Research Lead
The Paciello Group
dsloan@paciellogroup.com



On 20 May 2015, at 14:44, White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org> wrote:

> 
>> On May 20, 2015, at 07:39, Shadi Abou-Zahra <shadi@w3.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Please find a proposed charter for this combined effort for comments:
>> - http://www.w3.org/2015/04/draft-spec-charter
> This proposal captures the essential work of the RDWG, integrating it more closely with the specification review and coordination function of the APA WG. It is therefore in line with the direction taken in the previous draft RDWG charter.
> 
> It is also proposed that the APA WG should not coordinate with groups outside of the W3C. A consequence of this internal focus, however, is that valuable work and deliverables are lost. The most significant among them, in my view, is the guidance for accessibility-aware research. I am unaware of the current state of the Education and Outreach (EOWG) charter, but it may be feasible to develop a note on accessibility-aware research in the EO context. Opinions are likely to differ on the value of the externally-oriented activities and deliverables proposed in the RDWG charter that would no longer proceed under the combined APA WG proposal.
> 
> Apart from this reservation, I am supportive of the idea of incorporating a longer-term perspective, informed by research, into the activities of the APA WG.
> 
> 
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Received on Wednesday, 27 May 2015 14:57:17 UTC