Call for Review: New version of WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices, and updates to WAI-ARIA 1.1 and Core Accessibility API Mappings

Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,

The W3C WAI Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG) invites you to 
comment on new and updated Working Drafts of:

* WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1 (new)
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-1.1/
* Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1 (updated)
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/ <https://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/Group/@@>
* Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 (Core-AAM) (updated)
http://www.w3.org/TR/core-aam-1.1/ <https://www.w3.org/WAI/CG/Group/@@>

**About WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices*:*

WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices provides recommends approaches to help web 
application developers make widgets, navigation, and behaviors 
accessible using WAI-ARIA roles, states, and properties. It describes 
considerations that might not be evident to most authors from the 
WAI-ARIA specification which is oriented primarily at user agent 
implementers. An earlier version of the WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices was 
published in March 2013 to support WAI-ARIA 1.0. The Working Group has 
substantially reworked the document since then in order to provide 
guidance specific to WAI-ARIA 1.1. Therefore it is being published as a 
new version, WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1, and the old version is 
being discontinued.

**About WAI-ARIA*:*

WAI-ARIA defines a way to make web content, particularly web 
applications, more accessible to people with disabilities. It especially 
helps with dynamic content and advanced user interface controls 
developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies. 
WAI-ARIA works with existing web content technologies, such as HTML and 
SVG, and provides a way to apply the requirements of Web Content 
Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 for rich web applications. It is 
introduced in the WAI-ARIA Overview at <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria>.

**About Core-AAM*:*

Core Accessibility API Mappings (Core-AAM) describes how user agents 
should expose content semantics (including WAI-ARIA semantics) to 
accessibility APIs. Core-AAM defines support that applies across 
multiple content technologies, including general keyboard navigation 
support and mapping of general-purpose WAI-ARIA features. Other 
Accessibility API Mappings specifications will depend on and extend this 
Core specification for specific technologies, including native techology 
features and WAI-ARIA extensions. Core-AAM will eventually supersede the 
guidance in the WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation Guide that is a 
W3C Recommendation.

**Versions*:*

WAI-ARIA 1.0 is currently a W3C Recommendation. It remains the 
recommended version for production user agent implementations and 
authors at this time. WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1, WAI-ARIA 1.1, 
and Core-AAM 1.1 are Working Drafts and subject to change. Eventually 
they are expected to advance to Recommendation, at which point they 
would subsume WAI-ARIA 1.0. The stages of specification development are 
explained in How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C 
Process at: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/w3c-process>.

The in-progress updates to WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1 are 
available in an Editors' Draft at 
<http://w3c.github.io/aria/practices/aria-practices.html>.
The in-progress updates to WAI-ARIA 1.1 are available in an Editors' 
Draft at <http://w3c.github.io/aria/aria/aria.html>.
The in-progress updates to Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 are 
available in an Editors' Draft at 
<http://w3c.github.io/aria/core-aam/core-aam.html>.

The status of WAI-ARIA versions is updated in the WAI-ARIA FAQ: 
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/aria/faq#status>

**For review*:*

The First Public Working Draft of WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices provides 
support for new WAI-ARIA 1.1 features and restructures introductory 
information that was previously part of the WAI-ARIA Primer. The updated 
Working Draft of WAI-ARIA 1.1 adds properties to support tables, the 
"aria-current" property to indicate the active item in a container, and 
new roles for search boxes and switch-type checkboxes. Core 
Accessibility API Mappings (Core-AAM) provides support for the new 
WAI-ARIA 1.1 features as well as more complete accessibility API 
Mappings for other features.

Please submit comments the the publicly-archived e-mail:
    public-pfwg-comments@w3.org
or file an issue in W3C Bugzilla:
    https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/enter_bug.cgi?product=ARIA&version=1.1
by *12 June 2015*

URI:
The first URIs above go to the latest versions of the documents. The 
"dated" versions of these drafts are: 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-wai-aria-practices-1.1-20150514/>, 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-wai-aria-1.1-20150514/> and 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-core-aam-1.1-20150514/>. The difference 
between these URIs are explained in Referencing and Linking to WAI 
Guidelines and Technical Documents at: 
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/linking.html> 
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/linking.html>

Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for 
your comments.
Feel free to circulate this message to other lists; please avoid 
cross-postings where possible.

Regards,
Janina Sajka, PFWG Chair
Michael Cooper, PFWG W3C Staff Contact
Shawn Henry, WAI Outreach
Judy Brewer, WAI Director