COGA Task Force July 28th Meeting Summary

   - COGA Task Force July 28th Meeting Summary

   - Administrative Items
      -

      Scribe: Eric Hind volunteered as scribe for the meeting.
      -

      COGA vacation dates: The group decided not to have meetings the last
      week of August and first week of September.
      -

      AI note-taking: Julie Rawe mentioned she is using AI note-taking and
      will clean up the notes after meetings.
      -

      Sub-bullet formatting: The note-taking tool did not format
      sub-bullets correctly, but fixing them would be very
time-consuming. We’ll
      try to adjust the prompt so it uses correct formatting for the next COGA
      meeting.
      -

      Minutes for this meeting:
      https://www.w3.org/2025/07/28-coga-minutes.html



   - Issue Papers Discussion
   Lisa Seeman explained the framework of issue papers:
      -

      These are research papers that delve deeply into specific topics.
      -

      They will be used later to help develop patterns for Making Content
      Usable.
      -

      We want to publish the first working drafts of a few papers to gather
      feedback. These are not final publications.
      -

      Three papers were discussed for potential publication:
      -

         Online Safety and Wellbeing
         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VxJ0X8dC6dtL3Fm26_8XsuscGaSRR2Hr2YFgMaQeD0k/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.nuzseovbtcp>:
         Updated to include mental health risks related to social
media, algorithms,
         and curated content. Will update the abstract and make
language consistency
         changes before publishing.
         -

         Technology-Assisted Indoor Navigation and Wayfinding
         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TDtuC_iMyS_X6nXwyEEAu4Abp2tXHb86/edit>:
         This draft also needs to update the abstract and make
language consistency
         changes. Eric may have additional changes based on his Github work.
         -

         Voice Systems and Conversational Interfaces
         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B1vCqlU1IF5UmqxhJAy8Khdi-kRQNPalVX8f3lCMr7w/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.kxpt0yrvdco6>:
         Has an updated abstract
         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B1vCqlU1IF5UmqxhJAy8Khdi-kRQNPalVX8f3lCMr7w/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.ch62vn2a9dag>
         that will serve as a template for other papers. COGA members
are encouraged
         to review the introduction
         <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B1vCqlU1IF5UmqxhJAy8Khdi-kRQNPalVX8f3lCMr7w/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.ygyjqiz5veyw>,
         which explains which types of disabilities are covered under
the “cognitive
         accessibility” umbrella phrase. Reference section is being
worked on by
         Julie and Charli.
         -

   The group voted to move forward with Call for Consensus (CFC) emails for
   all three papers, giving members one week to do a high-level review before
   publication as first working drafts. Lisa and Julie clarified that at this
   stage, we are not looking for minor issues such as wordsmithing. We are
   looking for “showstoppers” that are so serious we should delay publication
   of the first working draft.
   -
   WCAG 3 Discussion
   Rachael Montgomery presented time-sensitive information about debates
   the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG) is having about how to
   approach publishing WCAG 3:
      -

      The AGWG is debating three WCAG 3 publishing trade-offs
      <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343> that will impact the
      next two-year charter period.
      -

      Question #1
      <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13765990>:
      How to prioritize which content gets published first? Do we prioritize
      items that didn’t get much representation in WCAG 2.2, such as cognitive
      and low vision? Or do we prioritize getting WCAG 2.2 into the
WCAG 3 format
      and then add new stuff on top of that?
      -

      Question #2
      <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13765991>:
      Should we publish new stuff as notes or as recommendation-track
documents?
      Notes are less formal and can get published sooner, but may be
more likely
      to be ignored by regulators.
      -

      Question #3
      <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13765994>:
      Is it better to wait until all of WCAG 3 is ready to publish as one big
      recommendation-track document? Or to plan on doing lots of smaller
      rec-track additions (WCAG 3.1, WCAG 3.2, etc) so we can publish new stuff
      faster? How might publishing in smaller increments affect when regulators
      decide to adopt WCAG 3?
      -

      Concerns were raised about some comments suggesting WCAG 3.
      -

      Lisa Seeman and Julie Rawe added comments emphasizing the importance
      of including cognitive accessibility in WCAG 3 sooner rather than later.
      -

      Members were encouraged to participate in the GitHub discussion and
      attend the AG meeting tomorrow/Tuesday at 11am Boston time.
      -

   The meeting ended with a call for members to review documents and
   provide feedback through GitHub.

WCAG 3 trade-offs debate: Your Github participation requested today

   1.

   Go to this Github discussion thread
   <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343>.
   2.

   Log in so you can add your reactions.
   3.

   Consider adding 👎to Detlev’s comment
   <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13815560>,,
   which says WCAG 3 should focus on converting WCAG 2.2 first and should wait
   to add new cognitive issues.
   4.

   Add 👍to two comments from COGA folks: Lisa’s comment
   <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13912218>
   and Julie’s comment
   <https://github.com/w3c/wcag3/discussions/343#discussioncomment-13913119>
   .
   5.

   Consider attending the AG meeting tomorrow/Tuesday at 11am Boston time
   <https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/fad52978-dc63-4427-90b9-e64dd31b0566/20250729T110000/>,
   when the WCAG 3 trade-offs will be discussed, thank you!


-- 
[image: understood.logo] <https://www.understood.org/>   *Julie Rawe*
*Director, Content Strategy & Accessibility*
jrawe@understood.org
www.understood.org
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