Re: W3C Accessibility for Children Community Group

Hey! Suzanne and All,

It is great to see your message about accessibility needs for children.

Particularly over the past year, with students needing to rely on online 
learning for so much of their education, the digital disability divide 
for children has become a more pressing aspect of equitable access to 
education -- and we need to understand this area better.

Also with regard to the interest in games that you mentioned Suzanne, my 
impression is also that gamification of learning got a bit of a boost 
over the past year, to help keep students' attention during this 
difficult period, and there should be interesting questions to explore 
there as well.

So while I don't expect to be able to join the group on a regular basis, 
and don't want my time zone to count in meeting planning, I would like 
to welcome and encourage this work, and will be interested to watch the 
progress.

Best,

- Judy


On 5/13/2021 3:16 PM, Suzanne Taylor wrote:
> W3C Accessibility for Children Community Group
>
> Hey hey!
>
> This email is to see if we can get the W3C Accessibility for Children 
> Community Group <https://www.w3.org/community/accessibility4children/> 
> active again for the purposes of:
>
>   * Identifying user needs for children with disabilities,
>     particularly needs that are not already covered by existing W3C
>     accessibility standards. (Often these needs will also be shared by
>     some adults, but be more apparent when considering children.)
>   * Literature review to see where enough research is already
>     available to support accommodating these user needs while writing
>     accessibility standards and recommendations.
>   * Identifying open research questions and advocating for further
>     research where needed.
>
> The idea of this work taking place through this Community Group to 
> inform future accessibility standards has the support of the chairs of 
> the following W3C Groups, so the work is not likely to go to waste:
>
>   * Silver Task Force
>   * Silver Community Group
>   * Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
>
> If you are interested in participating, could you reply with:
>
>   * Your location and  time zone
>   * Whether you prefer meeting once a week or once every two weeks
>   * If there are particular times you absolutely can’t meet
>   * If you have any particular areas of study or interest (such as a
>     particular disability groups, particular types of accommodations,
>     particular types of products, or particular research topics)
>
> (By way of introduction, I’m Suzanne and through my company, Things 
> Entertainment, I work on development of accessible games/AR and 
> provide consulting on educational publishing accessibility. We also do 
> some types of accessibility production work, usually focused on writing.)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Suzanne
>
> --------------------
>
> *Suzanne Taylor*
>
> Founder
>
> Things Entertainment, LLC
>
> http://www.ThingsEntertainment.com <http://www.thingsentertainment.com/>
>
> Twitter: @ThingsEGames
>
> office: 201-785-9919
>
> text: 201-390-4987
>
> LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannektaylor 
> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzannektaylor>
>
-- 
Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
105 Broadway, Room 7-128, MIT/CSAIL
Cambridge MA 02142 USA
www.w3.org/WAI/