Call for Review: Updates to WAI-ARIA 1.1, Core AAM, and AccName-AAM

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:

* Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1
    http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.1/
* Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 (Core-AAM)
    http://www.w3.org/TR/core-aam-1.1/
* Accessible Name and Description: Computation and API Mappings 1.1 
(AccName-AAM)
    http://www.w3.org/TR/accname-aam-1.1/

**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.

**About AccName-AAM*:*

Accessible Name and Description: Computation and API Mappings 1.1 
(AccName-AAM) describes how user agents determine names and descriptions 
of accessible objects from web content languages and expose them in 
accessibility APIs. This allows assistive technologies to associate and 
relay the name or description of objects to users. It contains content 
previously published in WAI-ARIA 1.1 and Core Accessibility API Mappings 
1.1. Moving that content to this specification eliminates duplication 
between Core AAM and WAI-ARIA, and facilitates future host 
language-specific accessible name guidance. The AccName-AAM defines 
support for general-purpose WAI-ARIA roles, states, and properties as 
well as features specific to individual content languages.

**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 1.1, Core-AAM 1.1, and AccName-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 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 in-progress updates to AccName-AAM 1.1 are available in an Editors' 
Draft at <http://w3c.github.io/aria/accname-aam/accname-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 updated Working Draft of WAI-ARIA 1.1 adds table roles and a model 
to distinguish tables from grids, adds the "aria-roledescription" 
property to refine user understanding of roles, changed applicability of 
"aria-readonly" and "aria-level", and expanded explanation of 
"supported" vs. "required" states and properties. Core Accessibility API 
Mappings (Core-AAM) and Accessible Name and Description: Computation and 
API Mappings (AccName-AAM) provide 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 *28 August 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-1.1-20150714/>, 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-core-aam-1.1-20150714/>, and 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-accname-aam-1.1-20150714/>. 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>

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