RE: Wrapping up the ATAG-WG

To kick off the discussion of future of accessible authoring tool guidance...

Some thoughts on where ATAG's requirements might go from here:

1. By this point, WCAG is quite well known by accessibility folks and developers, but ATAG ... not so much (it doesn't help that ATAG is [1] a major air transport industry group, [2] a dutch appliance maker and [3] a Facebook-related slang word [3]).

2. Nevertheless, in the short- to medium-term, ATAG 2.0 should remain the stable W3C reference. Anything else, would unnecessarily undermine all of the group's many years of work.

3. It's important to remember that there is a lot of nuance in ATAG. It's not just about one type of tool producing one type of content. It was designed to apply any time people are creating or modifying web content for use by other people. This can include social media, content management systems, integrated development environments, as well as more conventional web authoring tools.

4. WCAG 2.0 is currently locked down with just a small mention of ATAG in its introduction (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#intro), but the WCAG 2.0 support documentsare still open and could be updated to include links to ATAG 2.0 along with the explanation that when web content is used to create a web authoring interface, ATAG 2.0 applies.

5. If a minor update to WCAG is published (e.g. a WCAG 2.1), then the existing (very concise) ATAG reference might be expanded. ALSO, in WCAG's conformance section it might be pointed out that it is not enough for web-based authoring tools to just conform to WCAG, when ATAG also applies.

6. In the longer-term, if a major WCAG update is published (e.g. WCAG 3.0), Part A of ATAG 2.0 would be a candidate for rolling into WCAG.
- Some success criteria in Part A restate WCAG success criteria for the benefit of non-web based tools (to which ATAG also applies) 
- There are a few things that could be applied more generally than authoring tools (e.g. A.3.1.6 Present Keyboard Commands; A.3.2.3 Static Input Components)
- There are also some special cases (e.g. Preview (A.3.7), Independence of display (A.3.6.1), etc.) that perhaps could become something like a "WCAG - Authoring Tool User Interface Extension".
- Maybe ATAG could take advantage of WCAG's name recognition with a re-branding such as a "WCAG - Authoring Tool Support Extension"

7. If WAI ever embarks on a standard for general-purpose application accessibility (e.g. applying to non-web-based desktop apps, mobile apps, web apps, etc.), much of Part A could be rolled in and of course much of Part B would apply to applications that are also authoring tools.

[1] http://www.atag.org/about-us/who-we-are.html
[2] http://www.atagnederland.com/
[3] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Atag

Cheers,
Jan

(MR) JAN RICHARDS
PROJECT MANAGER
INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE (IDRC)
OCAD UNIVERSITY

T 416 977 6000 x3957
F 416 977 9844
E jrichards@ocadu.ca

________________________________________
From: Richards, Jan [jrichards@ocadu.ca]
Sent: October-26-15 10:48 AM
To: w3c-wai-au@w3.org
Subject: Wrapping up the ATAG-WG

Hi all,

Today's ATAG-WG call is CANCELLED. And, sinces Jutta will be traveling next week, the call next Monday (Nov 2) is also CANCELLED.

That leaves us with no further calls before the working group is scheduled to wrap up on Nov 5 (http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/2010/auwg_charter).

So, instead we'd like to invite you to do two things:

(1) Think about the future of accessible authoring tool guidance (e.g. how to promote ATAG 2.0, which W3C groups could take up the effort, is anything missing, etc.). Send any thoughts to the mailing list, where they can be archived.

(2) Join us for an informal call (on a date TBD in November) for past and present ATAG-WG members to celebrate ATAG 2.0 and discuss the future of accessible authoring tool guidance. Hopefully, we can find a time that works for most people. Please let us know if you'd be interested in joining us.

Cheers,
Jan


(MR) JAN RICHARDS
PROJECT MANAGER
INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE (IDRC)
OCAD UNIVERSITY

T 416 977 6000 x3957
F 416 977 9844
E jrichards@ocadu.ca

Received on Monday, 26 October 2015 15:05:25 UTC