Re: Is it 2 or 3 years that WCAG will be updated? - I thought it was approx. 3

​​+1 to Andrew.

The deck I used for the internal Deque presentation today was dated
September 30th and was first presented at Paris-Web on that day, and was
based on thoughts & discussions that emerged from TPAC 2016 the week
previous. Some aspects of that have changed since then, however the goal of
getting WCAG 2.1 completed in a 2-year time frame (closer to 15-18 months),
and that a FPWD of Silver (AG/3.0) is targeted for 3 years is now part of
our Draft Charter out for review to the AC. *Additionally, all dates in the
PPT deck were also clearly marked TBC*.

The current Draft Charter for this Working Group now has an indicated
release date of Q2 (June) 2018 for WCAG 2.1 (
https://www.w3.org/2016/11/proposed-ag-charter#milestones), and personally
I have a high-level expectation that this date will not slip FOR ANY
REASON. (I suspect that will also be an expectation from W3C management and
AC representatives.)

Because of that, I also suspect that not all of the currently proposed 50+
new Success Criteria emerging from the various task forces will make that
date. Despite my continued reservations that this scenario is currently not
explicitly addressed in the proposed new WG charter, I agreed (or rather
"agreed to live with") to let the charter move forward for AC review, with
the understanding that we may need a WCAG 2.2, likely to ship during the
*next* charter (after the currently proposed new 3 year charter expires) to
address current proposed SC that did not make the cut-off date for WCAG
2.1. Whether that would be in a 1, 2 or 3 year time-frame after the
2016-2019 charter period expires has been left to determine during the next
rechartering exercise. That decision will also likely be impacted and
informed by progress made on the Silver activity (i.e. if progress on
Silver is moving forward rapidly, we may not need a 2.2, and instead go
straight to 3.0/Silver).


Another question that surfaced during that internal presentation today was
"Who is WCAG for?", to which I referenced the following:
Who WCAG is for

WCAG is primarily intended for:

   - Web content developers (page authors, site designers, etc.)
   - Web authoring tool developers
   - Web accessibility evaluation tool developers
   - Others who want or need a standard for web accessibility

Related resources are intended to meet the needs of many different people,
including policy makers, managers, researchers, and others.

WCAG is a technical standard, not an introduction to accessibility. For
introductory material, see Where should I start? in the FAQ
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/wcag2faq.html#start>.

(source: https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag.php)


While the role of governments and legislators is noted in the "constituents
group" above (policy makers), I also wanted to note their secondary role,
and to underscore that WCAG is *primarily *for the users and content
creators (per our own documentation), and that we should be working to
*their* needs over those of the regulators, including developing time-lines
and delivery deadlines, especially with the 2.x work. If the priority of
constituents has changed since the publishing of WCAG 2.0, and the current
information posted on the Intro page is now inaccurate, I'd like to know
when that happened (Meeting minutes, CfC, etc.), or, conversely, do we need
to review that point as part of our going forward?

<opinion>

I do believe that a deeper consultation with all stakeholders is
appropriate for the AG (aka 3.0) work, and in fact is called out explicitly
in the Silver draft Work Statement, but I again reiterate that from my
perspective, work on the 2.x activity should not and in fact must not be
delayed by policy makers (etc.) not being actively involved in the 2.x work
and slowing our progress.

We need to work at the speed of the internet, not the speed of regulators,
to get accurate, useful, and standardized Success Criteria into the hands
of those who *want* this content *today*: I already know of at least one
organization that is legally mandated to meet the BBC Mobile Accessibility
Guidelines, not because they didn't want to use WCAG Guidelines, but *because
WCAG has nothing today specific to Mobile*, and they needed something now,
not in 5 years time. This is another problem we must also recognize: if we
take too long to update our guidance, our Recommendation will start to lose
credibility and relevance to the real world, in much the same way that
Section 508 today is irrelevant to most content producers "in the wild":
even the US Department of Justice references WCAG 2.0 over Section 508, and
through my work I note other 508-mandated stakeholders are today driving
toward WCAG 2.0 instead - I heard this multiple times at Educause 2 weeks
ago, with multiple publicly funded EDUs adopting WCAG 2.0 as their internal
standard.

(I'll also note in passing that this could negatively impact this Working
Group's very existence: during the last rechartering of the Education and
Outreach Working Group, more than one AC representative noted that they
felt the work of EO was being duplicated elsewhere: faster, and "better",
and why should the W3C continue to fund that activity? That hurdle was
cleared, and EO lives still, but there is a cautionary tale there that
should not be ignored... UAAG WG was also wrapped up for similar reasons.)

Those that are going to take their time adopting our new work, and/or push
back on each and every new SC as being difficult for regulators must not
stop us in this goal - they can stay conformant to WCAG 2.0 from now to
eternity (as WCAG 2.0 will never change), and instead make their
legislative shift to 3.0 when it is ready to be published as a W3C
Recommendation, and they are ready to adopt it - there is no obligation,
implied or stated, that governments and legislators *MUST* keep up with all
WCAG releases, whether major or minor.

</opinion>

JF

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Andrew,
>
>
>
> Thanks. That is what I thought!
>
>
>
> ​​​​​Happy Monday.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ** katie **
>
>
>
> *Katie Haritos-Shea*
> *Principal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)*
>
>
>
> *Cell: 703-371-5545 <703-371-5545> **|* *ryladog@gmail.com*
> <ryladog@gmail.com> *|* *Oakton, VA **|* *LinkedIn Profile*
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/> *|* *Office: 703-371-5545
> <703-371-5545> **|* *@ryladog* <https://twitter.com/Ryladog>
>
>
>
> *From:* Andrew Kirkpatrick [mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com]
> *Sent:* Monday, November 7, 2016 3:26 PM
> *To:* Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com>; 'WCAG' <
> w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; josh@interaccess.ie
> *Subject:* Re: Is it 2 or 3 years that WCAG will be updated? - I thought
> it was approx. 3
>
>
>
> As of right now we say in the proposed charter "The Working Group intends
> to produce updated guidance for accessibility on a regular interval of
> approximately three years, starting with WCAG 2.1.”
>
>
>
> We may determine that we can do it in 2 or we may determine that we need
> 4, or we may find that 2 is too soon or that 3 is too long. It is currently
> TBD, as there is not a consensus opinion on the group for 2 years at this
> point in time.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> AWK
>
>
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
> Group Product Manager, Standards and Accessibility
>
> Adobe
>
>
>
> akirkpat@adobe.com
>
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
>
>
>
> *From: *Katie GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com>
> *Date: *Monday, November 7, 2016 at 15:17
> *To: *WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>, "
> josh@interaccess.ie" <josh@interaccess.ie>
> *Subject: *Is it 2 or 3 years that WCAG will be updated? - I thought it
> was approx. 3
>
>
>
> Andrew and Josh,
>
>
>
> I was at a presentation today put on by John Foliot, where he stated that
> we, the WCAG Working Group, will be updating WCAG 2 every two years until
> Silver comes out.
>
>
>
> Is there some background information about how often **we** plan on
> updating WCAG 2, as was stated in the charter, that I am missing?
>
>
>
> ​​​​​
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ** katie **
>
>
>
>
> *Katie Haritos-SheaPrincipal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section
> 508/ADA/AODA)*
>
>
>
> *Cell: 703-371-5545 <703-371-5545> **|**ryladog@gmail.com
> <ryladog@gmail.com>**|**Oakton, VA **|**LinkedIn Profile
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/>**|**Office: 703-371-5545
> <703-371-5545> **|**@ryladog <https://twitter.com/Ryladog>*
>
>
>



-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion