RE: ITI VPATs and upcoming WCAG 2.2

Thanks for asking this question Patrick. Happy to hear that people are
already asking for VPATs with WCAG 2.2 in them.  Also, Mary Jo, I’m glad to
hear that there’s progress on bringing this into the ITI’s VPAT.

I wanted to add that I’ve just started the process of including WCAG 2.2
within OpenACR:
https://github.com/gsa/openacr-editor

I’ve just submitted the first PR as part of this process:
https://github.com/CivicActions/openacr/pull/21/files

It probably won’t be included in CivicActions editor or schema until
September. It is all open source code, but expect it to take longer to
become part of the GSA’s repo.  That said, I know folks there area also
eager to keep up with WCAG recommendations.

When we get it up, there will be a standardized, machine-readable
accessible conformance report tool which people can use.

Mary Jo, so do you think that in the future that your main landing page
will look like this https://www.itic.org/policy/accessibility/vpat still
with links to 4 word documents?

   - VPAT 2.x Rev 508: Revised Section 508 standards – the U.S. Federal
   accessibility standard
   - VPAT 2.x Rev EU: EN 301 549 – the European Union’s “Accessibility
   requirements suitable for public procurement of ICT products and services
   in Europe”
   - VPAT 2.x Rev WCAG: WCAG 2.1/2.2 or ISO/IEC 40500 (equivalent to WCAG
   2.0) and WCAG2.1/2/2, W3C/WAI’s recently updated Web Content Accessibility
   Guidelines
   - VPAT 2.4 INT: Incorporates all three of the above standards

Probably the easiest way to maintain it going ahead. With a JSON catalog it
should be much easier to switch between reporting formats, and just have
the information you want to report on.

Mike


Mike Gifford, Senior Strategist, CivicActions
Drupal Core Accessibility Maintainer
https://civicactions.com    |  https://accessibility.civicactions.com
http://twitter.com/mgifford |  http://linkedin.com/in/mgifford

On August 7, 2023 at 4:01:33 PM, Mary Jo Mueller (maryjom@us.ibm.com) wrote:

Good question Patrick.



It would take maybe a month or so to get the updated VPAT out there and
downloadable from the ITI website. The changes to the files can be made
quite quickly (a couple of weeks), but it could take a few weeks to get
them published on the ITI website. Timing depends on the ITI web
development team and how busy they are. To help you in the meantime if you
are wanting to support WCAG 2.2 it before we get the updates out:



We will update the VPAT version number and publication date – don’t know
what that might be (probably 2.5). We will incorporate the level A, AA, and
AAA criteria into their respective tables in the document, marking the WCAG
2.2 new criteria by adding “2.2 only” on those individual items. As an
example, this line item would be added to the Level A table:



   - 3.2.6 Consistent Help
<https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/#consistent-help> (Level
   A 2.2 only)



Additionally, we’d add the WCAG 2.2 standard and link into the Applicable
Standards/Guidelines table in a new row in a manner consistent with the
other two versions.



Best regards,



Mary Jo Mueller

IBM Accessibility Standards Program Manager





*From: *Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
*Date: *Monday, August 7, 2023 at 3:41 PM
*To: *w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
*Subject: *[EXTERNAL] Re: ITI VPATs and upcoming WCAG 2.2

Thank you Mary Jo. Any idea (possibly from past experience of similar
updates) how long you think an update may take once 2.2 is REC?

I only ask because some of our clients are already asking us now to
evaluate against 2.2 SCs now (with the understanding that the SCs may
still slightly change before REC), but are wondering how those would
then show up in the ACR we deliver them. Currently, we're planning to
(naively) extend the WCAG 2.0/2.1 tables to just slot in the new SCs,
but are aware that by doing this we risk diverging from the official ITI
template.

P

On 07/08/2023 19:12, Mary Jo Mueller wrote:
> As the chair of the ITI VPAT TF, we will wait until the update to WCAG
> 2.1 is published and for the Recommendation version of WCAG 2.2 to be
> published. That way if there are any last-minute changes, it won’t cause
> churn in the VPAT.  As Andrew aptly put, we typically wait for
> regulations to take up the new WCAG before the VPAT changes but with the
> obsolescence of 4.1.1 Parsing it is important to get that change out
> there ASAP.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Mary Jo Mueller
>
> IBM Accessibility Standards Program Manager


-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/  | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/  | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
https://mastodon.social/@patrick_h_lauke  | skype: patrick_h_lauke