Call for Review: Updates to WAI-ARIA 1.1, Accessibility API Mappings, and WAI-ARIA Practices from Michael Cooper on 2015-11-19 (w3c-wai-ig@w3.org from October to December 2015)

From: Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 10:24:56 -0500
To: WAI IG <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Cc: "Richard S. Schwerdtfeger" <schwer@us.ibm.com>
Message-ID: <564DE9C8.6050804@w3.org>
Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,

The W3C WAI Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group (ARIA 
WG) invites you to comment on 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/
* SVG Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 (SVG-AAM, jointly published with 
the SVG Working Group)
    http://www.w3.org/TR/svg-aam-1.0/
* WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1
    http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-practices-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 
technology 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.

**About SVG-AAM*:*

SVG Accessibility API Mappings is intended for Scalable Vector Graphics 
(SVG) user agent developers responsible for SVG accessibility in their 
user agent. It defines how user agents map SVG markup to platform 
accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs). When supported 
by user agents, its features allow SVG authors to create accessible rich 
internet applications, including charts, graphs, and other drawings. It 
does this by extending the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 
(CORE-AAM) and the Accessible Name and Description: Computation and API 
Mappings 1.1 to provide SVG-specific guidance for how the SVG user agent 
must respond to keyboard focus, native SVG features, and role, state and 
property attributes provided via WAI-ARIA.

**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.

**Transition of Working Groups*:*

These documents are published by the Accessible Rich Internet 
Applications Working Group <http://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/>. The the 
SVG-AAM is jointly published with the SVG Working Group 
<http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/WG/>.

They were previously published by the Protocols and Formats Working 
Group <http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/>.

The documents have moved to new Working Groups because of changes in the 
set of Working Groups chartered at W3C. The ARIA Working Group home page 
is now where information about the development of WAI-ARIA is maintained.

**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 and the Accessibility API Mappings 
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. WAI-AIRA Authoring Practice is a Working Draft eventually expected 
to advance to Working Group Note. 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 in-progress updates to SVG-AAM 1.0 are available in an Editors' 
Draft at <http://w3c.github.io/aria/svg-aam/svg-aam.html>.
The in-progress updates to WAI-ARIA 1.1 Practices are available in an 
Editors' Draft at 
<http://w3c.github.io/aria/practices/aria-practices.html>.

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

**For review*:*

This version of ARIA 1.1 adds term, figure, and feed roles, adds a value 
for aria-setsize, and adjusts the support of states and properties on 
some roles. It also adds a note that the aria-describedat property is 
likely to be removed from ARIA 1.1. Updates to Accessibility API 
Mappings specifications provide mappings for new and updated WAI-ARIA 
1.1 features and expand of previous mappings, including for native host 
language features. They also remove MSAA+UIA Express mappings. WAI-ARIA 
Authoring Practices provides additional refinements to the authoring 
guidance.

**Comments*:*

Please submit comments the the publicly-archived e-mail:
    public-aria-comments@w3.org
or file an issue in GitHub:
    https://github.com/w3c/aria/issues/
by *15 January 2016*

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-1.1-20151119/>, 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-core-aam-1.1-20151119/>, 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-accname-aam-1.1-20151119/>, 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-svg-aam-1.0-20151119/>, and 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-wai-aria-practices-1.1-20151119/>. 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,
Rich Schwerdtfeger, ARIA WG Chair
Michael Cooper, ARIA W3C Staff Contact
Received on Thursday, 19 November 2015 15:25:00 UTC