WAI INTEREST GROUP UPDATE, November 2, 1998

WAI INTEREST GROUP UPDATE, November 2, 1998

1. New WAI Authoring Tool Guidelines draft & upcoming IG review
2. Feedback needed on authoring tool accessibility
3. New WAI User Agent Guidelines draft, also upcoming IG review
4. US EITAAC holds first meeting
5. W3C Voice Browser Workshop minutes now available

Note: 
   This issue of WAI IG Update resumes weekly mailings. 
   Archived IG Updates are at <http://www.w3.org/WAI/IG>.

1. New WAI Authoring Tool Guidelines draft & upcoming IG review:

The WAI Authoring Tools Working Group (AUWG) posted an updated working
draft today <http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/WAI-AUTOOLS-19981102.html>. There
will be a WAI Interest Group call for review this week on an updated draft,
before the document goes to the W3C Technical Reports page as a first
Public Working Draft. Stay tuned.

2. Feedback needed on authoring tool accessibility:

Twice a year, representatives from W3C Member organizations meet to review
W3C work. As part of the WAI report to the mid-November W3C meeting in
Kyoto, we will discuss accessibility issues in authoring tools. Both the
output and the user interface of authoring tools remain a concern in terms
of accessibility. If you have comments on accessibility of authoring tools,
please send to
w3c-wai-au@w3.org.

3. New WAI User Agent Guidelines draft, also upcoming IG review:

The WAI User Agent Working Group (WG) released an updated Working Draft,
October 30 <http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19981030/>, and
updated techniques document
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19981030/wai-useragent-tech>,
thanks to the hard work of AUWG members at the meeting in Minneapolis
October 23-26. Minutes from the meeting are available at
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-f2f-19981025.html#minutes>. Ian Jacob's
message
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1998OctDec/0102.html>
describes the changes in this draft. There will be a WAI Interest Group
call for review this week, before the draft goes to Technical Reports as a
replacement for the July 3rd public version.

4. US EITAAC holds first meeting:

The US EITAAC (Electronic and Information Technology Access Advisory
Committee) met for the first time on October 15 & 16 in D.C. There was
general agreement that the EITAAC
<http://www.access-board.gov/notices/eitaac.htm> should include Web
accessibility among the areas for which it develops standards for US
Government procurement. Minutes of the meeting are available at
<http://www.access-board.gov/eitaac/meeting-minutes-1998-10.htm> including
instructions on how to follow EITAAC mailing list discussions, which are
publicly viewable. 

5. W3C Voice Browser Workshop minutes now available:

Minutes and some presentations from the Voice Browser workshop which was
held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA on Tuesday, October 13 are now
available linked from the workshop agenda at
<http://www.w3.org/UI/Voice/workshop/minutes-13oct98.html>. The workshop
included presentations on a variety of speech-output, voice-activated, and
phone-based browsers. The meeting concluded with a decision to prepare a
briefing package to propose formal W3C activity in this area.

----------
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

Received on Monday, 2 November 1998 20:23:11 UTC