RE: What actually is an APA review, anyway?

Hi Todd, all,

Thanks for your continued interest in the FAST work - I've emailed you off-list about recent developments that we'd love your help with (sorry for the delay in my reply, and for the issues with time zones!)

The main thing I was wondering about in this thread is whether we could do more as a group to benefit from, and feed into, the work that RQTF and FAST are doing. One way we try to do this organically is to have people in both TFs on the APA call too. I'm a fan of only making process where it's warranted, and that might be sufficient. I'm curious if others share my framing of the nature of our reviews though.

The other aspect of my question is I'd like to capture what info would be helpful for newer APA members, so they can benefit from these resources, and help us improve them. I _do_ think we can do more on that as a group, and I'm thinking about how I can seed that work - probably by collating some info on the wiki to start with.

Finally, of related interest, TAG and APA are both working on making it easier for spec authors to request reviews, and also on ensuring that APA has more of a 'heads up' on early proposals, so we can help the proponents ensure great accessibility by the time those proposals come to us as specs for horizontal review. More on that as it develops! Or if you want a lot of details, check out this PR: <https://github.com/w3ctag/accessibility-screener/pull/9>

I'm at a TAG face-to-face meeting next week but I am thinking about this and hope to do some of that collating soon after. Any thoughts, or requests, welcome :-).

Best regards,


Matthew

Matthew Atkinson
Head of Web Standards
Samsung R&D Institute UK
Samsung Electronics
+44 7733 238 020

Samsung R&D Institute (SRUK), Communications House, South Street, Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, TW18 4QE. A division of Samsung Electronics (UK) Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales with registered number 03086621 and whose registered address is Samsung House, 2000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0RS, UK. This email (including any attachments) is private and confidential, and may be privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). If you have received this email in error, please inform the sender immediately and then delete this email. Unless you have been given specific permission to do so, please do not distribute or copy this email or its contents. Unless the text of this email specifically states that it is a contractual offer or acceptance, the sender does not intend to create a legal relationship and this email shall not constitute an offer or acceptance which could give rise to a contract. Any views expressed in this communication are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Samsung.

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Libby <toddlibby@protonmail.com> 
Sent: 09 September 2025 00:59
To: m.atkinson@samsung.com
Cc: 'W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures' <public-apa@w3.org>; public-rqtf@w3.org; public-fast@w3.org
Subject: Re: What actually is an APA review, anyway?

Hi Matthew,

I have inquired about the FAST meeting a couple times as the current time when the meetings do take place does not align with the times I am available (currently the meeting is at 2am my time, Arizona - Mountain Standard Time).

If I read your email correctly, would the FAST work be held during the APA meeting? If so, this would be more aligned with when I am available.

I, for one, would like to collaborate more with the FAST work after been doing some of the original work in the Functional Needs subgroup with Michael Cooper, Joshue O'Connor, Charles Hall, and Jake Abma.

Thank you.





---
Best,

Todd Libby
W3C Invited Expert
toddlibby@protonmail.com
https://protect2.fireeye.com/v1/url?k=0e70f02c-6e926d71-0e717b63-000babd9f1ba-12f966158f52540a&q=1&e=1d6bb7f7-f304-458c-8192-c19354fdaa60&u=https%3A%2F%2Ftoddl.dev%2F



On Monday, September 8th, 2025 at 12:39 PM, m.atkinson@samsung.com <m.atkinson@samsung.com> wrote:

> Dear APA, RQTF, and FAST colleagues,
> 
> I was asked recently about an aspect of how APA conducts its reviews, 
> and it got me to thinking about what we really look for, and how we 
> might help document and improve the review process, making it 
> accessible for new APA members, just as we are working on making it 
> more accessible for spec authors (some announcements to come there 
> soon!)
> 
> The specific question I was asked was: do we check that specs ensure 
> that appropriate info is exposed via the accessibility tree? My 
> thought was yes, but actually by the time most specs get to us, we are 
> beyond that stage, and technical groups tend to be good at ensuring those things happen.
> 
> My feeling is that the main insight APA provides in reviews is to 
> highlight the use cases - user needs, or requirements, if you will - 
> that groups might otherwise have overlooked, or been unaware of. 
> That's why all of you are already experts at reviewing things!
> 
> Our Research Questions Task Force [1] (RTQF)'s Accessibility User 
> Requirements (AUR) documents [2] are an ideal source of such user 
> requirements - as well as good general advice on how to meet users' needs.
> They may not cover every technology we might review, but they 
> certainly cover some key use cases that spec authors might not have 
> thought of, and they are very clearly written. So the AURs are a great 
> reference for any APA reviewer. But also, perhaps our reviews could 
> feed back into those AUR documents... for example: we could well find 
> user needs that an existing AUR doesn't mention (maybe because of a 
> new type of device being used to access the content), or we may start 
> getting hints about what the next AUR should cover. So we should also 
> be feeding back to RQTF on these things, to help them update the AURs, and plan future ones.
> 
> Finally, I think the Framework for Accessibility in the Specification 
> of Technologies (FAST) TF [3] fits in here in a key way: I'd say the 
> 'elevator pitch' for FAST is that we're providing resources to spec 
> authors at design time, such that when they get to full horizontal 
> review, they've already considered the user needs that RQTF's AURs have documented.
> 
> In that way, there's scope for stronger collaboration between APA WG 
> (in the horizontal review sense), RQTF, and FAST. I think as a group 
> this is informally how we have been working already, and informal is 
> good, but having some pointers for new APA members to the fantastic 
> resources available from RQTF, and providing pointers also to give 
> feedback to RQTF on those, as well as having the FAST folks monitor 
> for things we need to put into specs in the first place, would be great.
> 
> What do you all think? (I'm cross-posting to APA WG, RQTF, and FAST - 
> please reply-to-all if you want everyone to get your message.)
> 
> best regards,
> 
> 
> Matthew
> 
> [1] RQTF:
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/about/groups/task-forces/research-questions/
> 
> [2] Digital Accessibility User Requirements (AUR) documents:
> https://www.w3.org/WAI/research/user-requirements/
> 
> [3] FAST TF: https://www.w3.org/WAI/about/groups/task-forces/fast/
> 
> 
> Matthew Atkinson
> Head of Web Standards
> Samsung R&D Institute UK
> Samsung Electronics
> +44 7733 238 020
> 
> Samsung R&D Institute (SRUK), Communications House, South Street, 
> Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, TW18 4QE. A division of Samsung 
> Electronics
> (UK) Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales with 
> registered number 03086621 and whose registered address is Samsung 
> House,
> 2000 Hillswood Drive, Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0RS, UK. This email 
> (including any attachments) is private and confidential, and may be 
> privileged. It is for the exclusive use of the intended recipient(s). 
> If you have received this email in error, please inform the sender 
> immediately and then delete this email. Unless you have been given 
> specific permission to do so, please do not distribute or copy this 
> email or its contents. Unless the text of this email specifically 
> states that it is a contractual offer or acceptance, the sender does 
> not intend to create a legal relationship and this email shall not 
> constitute an offer or acceptance which could give rise to a contract. 
> Any views expressed in this communication are those of the individual 
> sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Samsung.

Received on Tuesday, 9 September 2025 21:57:37 UTC