[w3c-wai-ig] <none>

Daniel,

Here is a draft of the charter for the Authoring Tool Working Group. Please
give feedback.

Thanks
Jutta

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Draft Charter of Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group

A. Mission Statement

Compose W3C guidelines, related to Web content authoring tools, which
address the following two goals:
1. to make authoring tools accessible to authors with disabilities
2. to provide author support for creating accessible Web documents.


B. Work items:

1. Create guidelines for making authoring tools accessible to users with
disabilities. Guidelines can be divided into two areas:
- general accessible interface guidelines and
- guidelines specific to HTML or structured document authoring.
(The former can be easily derived from existing guidelines available
through Trace and other groups.)

2. Create guidelines, documents and prototype utilities for authoring tools
which provide author support for creating accessible documents.
a) Recommendations and guidelines produced by the PF, GL and HC will be
reviewed to determine which guidelines can be supported within the
authoring tool and recommended mechanisms for doing so.
b) Guidelines for developing authoring tools which support the creation of
accessible documents will be created. These will include priority levels
and example implementations.
c) Example help files will be authored which can be included in authoring
tool help files to instruct authors on the need and mechanisms for creating
accessible Web documents
d) Tools for partially automating such processes as linking d-links,
reusing alt-text, creating accessible style sheets, etc. will be prototyped
or specified.

3. Educate, negotiate with, and lobby authoring tool developers to adopt
recommendations.


C. Deliverables:

Guidelines documents (see work items)
Example Help files (see above)
Example tools (see above)


D. Criteria for Success:

Short term:
Positive evaluation and acceptance of deliverables by WAI and W3C members.
Long term:
Acceptance and utilization of guidelines and recommendations by developers
of authoring tools.
Long, long term:
Widespread creation of more accessible Web files.


E. Duration:

1 year


F. Milestones

As deliverables produced by this group are partially dependent on materials
produced by the other WAI groups, milestones will be scheduled in
coordination with the PF, GL and HC groups.


G. Names of Participants:

To be determined


H. Degree of Confidentiality:

Public


I. How a deliverable relates to existing international standards and to
relevant activities being pursued by other organizations:

This group will not attempt to modify any industry standard. The results of
this working group will be in the form of recommendations and design ideas.
These deliverables can be used by authoring tool producers as they attempt
to adopt W3C and WAI accessibility standards and recommendations.


J. Meeting mechanisms and Schedules:

- ongoing discussion via email
- live chat meetings over the web on a weekly basis
- strategically scheduled conference calls
- quarterly face to face meetings appropriately distributed geographically
and exploiting events participants may be attending


K. Voting Mechanisms:

- consensus decided by the chair.

Received on Thursday, 6 November 1997 13:42:55 UTC