Invitation: Contribute ideas to Silver

Do you have ideas of how to improve W3C accessibility standards?

The Silver Task Force 
<https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/task-forces/silver/wiki/> and theW3C Silver 
Community Group <https://www.w3.org/community/silver/> and their 
research partners did more than a year of research about the successor 
to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2. The Silver Design 
Sprint in March 2018 started finding solutions for the problem 
statements and opportunities identified by this research. These 
statements focus on the structure of Silver and not (yet) on the 
content. We have a lot of great ideas to get started.  The Design Sprint 
Report 
<https://www.w3.org/community/silver/draft-final-report-of-silver/> is 
comprehensive and rather long. We also wrote a shortened Suggestions of 
the Silver Design Sprint 
<https://www.w3.org/community/silver/2018/04/23/suggestions-of-silver-design-sprint/> 
in a blog post.

We want and need the creative input from our expert accessibility 
community.  We have a lot of ideas that came out of the Design Sprint, 
and now we start experimenting, testing, and refining how these ideas 
could work in the real world. Things like:

  * *Writing Silver in plain/simple language*. We need editors who can
    help us translate much of the existing WCAG 2.1 advice to simple
    language. It’s a big job. Many hands make light work.
  * “Databasing all the things” so that we can *filter and customize
    information* to give users the information they need without a wall
    of text.  We need help designing this, including the basic task of
    identifying the tag names that are needed. Some of you have thought
    about this, have information architecture experience, or have
    already created lists of tag names. Please help us out. We need some
    expert advice. Send us an email if you can help at
    public-silver@w3.org <mailto:public-silver@w3.org>.
  * Linking to more *helpful information that is hard to find*, like
    tutorials, videos of PwD using a feature, etc.  How do we do that
    without creating too much clutter for beginners? There are designers
    with usability expertise that know how to do this. Forward this
    email to them.
  * Creating a *homepage *that will direct beginners where to start, and
    as well as helping experts quickly find the code sample or tutorial
    link they want to include in a client report.
  * Developing a method for *accessibility experts to contribute new
    content*, such as design patterns, codes and tests, where you
    experts comment and vote material up and down. Many people recommend
    that we take lessons learned from open source communities. This
    would help keep Silver current while digital innovation keeps
    speeding up. How do we do that while ensuring that Silver provides
    top quality information? What would the interface look like? What
    features would you want? Draw it up for us, please.  We have a
    Github repo <https://github.com/w3c/silver> you can contribute to.
  * Changing how we define *conformance *so that more needs of people
    with disabilities can be included than can tested in true/false
    success criteria statements.  This is difficult. Many of you have
    experience creating testing tools and measurements beyond WCAG. We
    need your expertise.  Here is a rough draft of a way Silver
    conformance could work
    <https://w3c.github.io/silver/prototypes/ConformancePrototype/index.html>.
    Please comment on it and file Github issues
    <https://github.com/w3c/silver/issues>.  Add your own ideas.
  * Improving the *specification development tools* so that more people
    with disabilities can participate.  Initially, at a minimum, we need
    a simplified interface to Github that will allow screen reader users
    and people with cognitive disabilities to be able to submit an
    issue, read other comments, and add to the issue discussion. Contact
    Jeanne on Twitter @jspellman or email jspellman@paciellogroup.com
    <mailto:jspellman@paciellogroup.com>.
  * Helping us organize the *usability testing* of these ideas! We want
    Silver to be evidence-based, and we want data of what you like and
    don’t like about the ideas being proposed.

These ideas are innovative and controversial in their own way.  We want 
to develop working prototypes that we can show and user test both to 
refine and improve the ideas, but also to demonstrate that it can work 
and build support from key stakeholders before we start working on what 
new guidance will go into Silver.

If you haven’t seen an idea that appeals to your creativity, there are 
many more ideas in the Suggestions of the Design Sprint 
<https://www.w3.org/community/silver/2018/04/23/suggestions-of-silver-design-sprint/> 
and the full Design Sprint Report 
<https://www.w3.org/community/silver/draft-final-report-of-silver/>.  It 
also isn’t too late to create new ideas and priorities for Silver, this 
is just where we are putting a stake in the ground and saying, “let’s 
start here”.

One of the barriers identified during our research is the difficulty and 
time-consuming nature of standards work. We are using the W3C Silver 
Community group as a way for people to work on what interests them, and 
contribute only the time they want.  Joining the Silver Community Group 
is free, and requires agreeing to a limited IPR requirement 
<https://www.w3.org/community/about/agreements/summary/> so that W3C can 
use your work while keeping the finished guidelines free from royalties 
or fees for use.  It puts you on the mailing list, allows you to attend 
meetings (if you want), and to publish on the wiki. People who wish to 
contribute to the Github repo for prototypes should contact us for 
access.  (Permissions are still manual).

Read the Suggestions blog post, take a few minutes to join the Silver 
Community Group, and start jot down some ideas. To join the Silver 
Community Group:

 1. create a W3C account <https://www.w3.org/accounts/request> if you
    haven’t already. If you have an account but have lost the password,
    use this link to recover your W3C password
    <https://www.w3.org/accounts/recover>.
 2. The link to join the Silver Community Group
    <https://www.w3.org/community/silver/> is near the bottom of the
    page, under the heading of Participants or you can also join from
    the Silver Participants
    <https://www.w3.org/community/silver/participants> page

Here’s some useful links for those who want more information.

  * Find out more about the W3C Silver project
    <https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/task-forces/silver/wiki/Main_Page>
  * Silver Github Repo <https://github.com/w3c/silver> and List of
    Silver work on Github <https://w3c.github.io/silver/>
  * Find out more about the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
    <https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/>
  * Find out more about the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
    <https://www.w3.org/WAI/>

If you would like to socialize this email in social media, this email is 
a blog post at
https://www.w3.org/community/silver/2018/07/19/invitation-contribute-ideas-to-silver/