- From: Janet Daly <janet@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 14:29:38 -0500
- To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org, w3t-wai@w3.org
- CC: w3t-comm@w3.org, jongund@uiuc.edu, jbrewer@w3.org, wai-ua-review@w3.org
W3C is pleased to announce that the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines have been published as a Proposed Recommendation, and are now under review by the W3C membership. ================= The Document: "User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" URI: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/PR-UAAG10-20000310 Title page date: 10 March 2000 Editors: Jon Gunderson, Ian Jacobs As a quick reference to the checkpoints defined in the Guidelines, note also the appendix checklist, available as a table or list: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/PR-UAAG10-20000310/uaag10-chktable http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/PR-UAAG10-20000310/uaag10-chklist ================= Summary The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 is the major deliverable required by the charter of the User Agent Guidelines Working Group The charter is available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-charter The guidelines in this document explain to developers how to design user agents that are accessible to people with disabilities. User agents include graphical desktop browsers, multimedia players, text browsers, voice browsers, plug-ins, and other assistive technologies that provide access to Web content. While these guidelines primarily address the accessibility of general-purpose graphical user agents, the principles presented apply to other types of user agents as well. Following these principles will help make the Web accessible to users with disabilities and will benefit all users. The Working Group has published 27 drafts since June 1998, including a Last Call Working Draft on 5 November 1999 and a Candidate Recommendation on 28 January 2000. ================= >From Status of this document, at: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/PR-UAAG10-20000310 This is the 10 March 2000 Proposed Recommendation of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, for review by W3C Members and other interested parties. W3C Advisory Committee Members are invited to send formal review comments to wai-ua-review@w3.org, visible only to the W3C Team, until 7 April 2000. This revision reflects resolutions to issues raised during the Candidate Recommendation review period. A history of changes to this document is available on the Web. Note. Three checkpoints in this document (checkpoint 5.1, checkpoint 5.2, and checkpoint 5.4) refer to the W3C DOM Level 2 [DOM2] specification, which is a Candidate Recommendation as of 10 March 2000. The User Agent Guidelines Working Group will be tracking dependencies on that specification as it advances to Proposed Recommendation. Publication as a Proposed Recommendation does not imply endorsement by the W3C Membership. This is still a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite W3C Proposed Recommendations as other than "work in progress." The public is invited to send comments about this document to the public mailing list w3c-wai-ua@w3.org (public archives). This document has been produced as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative. The goals of the User Agent Working Group are described in the charter. A list of the Working Group participants is available. ================= Results of the Candidate Recommendation Review The general goal of a W3C Candidate Recommendation review period is to gain implementation experience and to demonstrate implementation interoperability. The User Agent Guidelines Working Group approached the Candidate Recommendation review with the following goals: 1) To document how some existing user agents satisfy the checkpoints. The Working Group's implementation report includes direct input from a number of user agent developers. The report is available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-IMP-20000308/ 2) To document that the W3C DOM will promote interoperability between user agents (e.g., browsers and assistive technologies). The Working Group surveyed user agent developers (browsers, multimedia players, and assistive technology developers) and solicited reviews of the Guidelines with this question in mind. Information about reviewers and their comments is available at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2000/01/reviewers-cr The reviews of the DOM requirements of Guideline 5 raised a number of issues that the Working Group resolved and documented in its issues list. Note: Three checkpoints in this document (checkpoint 5.1, checkpoint 5.2, and checkpoint 5.4) refer to the W3C DOM Level 2 specification, which is a Candidate Recommendation as of 10 March 2000. The User Agent Guidelines Working Group will be tracking dependencies on that specification as it advances to Proposed Recommendation. Should the User Agent Guidelines be approved as a Recommendation, the User Agent Guidelines Working Group expects to request this status once the DOM Level 2 specification has become a Proposed Recommendation. 3) To revise the Techniques Document. The Techniques Document suggests some implementation ideas for satisfying the checkpoints in the Guidelines document. The Working Group intends to publish the Techniques Document as a W3C Note when and if the guidelines become a Recommendation. Refer to the revised Working Draft at: http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-UAAG10-TECHS-20000310 ================= Additional Support Materials List of Document Changes. http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-wd-changes Resolved Issues List. http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2000/03/issues-linear-20000307 User Agent Responsibilities. This document explains how Working Group decided that the requirements in the guidelines were appropriate for general purpose user agents. http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2000/03/ua-resp-20000308 Impact Matrix. This document explains which audiences are most likely to benefit from each checkpoint. http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2000/03/WD-UAAG10-impact-matrix-20000309 ================= Minority objections During last call, the Chair registered one minority objection to the resolution of an issue about documentation of input configurations. The minority objection is documented at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2000JanMar/0178.html ================= Review Process During the next four weeks, the W3C Advisory Committee will review the UAAG 1.0 Proposed recommendation and send comments as to its disposition, according to the W3C Process, section 6.2.4: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/Process-19991111/tr.html#RecsPR 6.2.4 Proposed Recommendations (PR) Requirements for Entrance The Director must be satisfied that the Candidate Recommendation has a sufficient level of implementation experience or requires immediate Advisory Committee review. Associated activities The Working Group requests political and promotional support from the Advisory Committee. Duration The duration is specified as part of the request for Advisory Committee review. The review period may not be less than four weeks. Next State Upon Director approval based on Advisory Committee review a Proposed Recommendation is advanced to Recommendation. Otherwise it reverts to Working Draft for further work. A Proposed Recommendation is believed by the Working Group to meet the requirements of the Working Group's charter and to adequately address dependencies from the W3C technical community and comments from external reviewers. The Director issues a call for review of a Proposed Recommendation (accompanied by other materials such as documented minority opinions, implementation status, etc.) for political and promotional support and feedback from the Advisory Committee. The review period may not be less than four weeks. Although the Advisory Committee may also comment on technical aspects of a specification, most technical issues should have already been resolved at this phase. There is no requirement that a Candidate Recommendation have two independent and interoperable implementations to become a Proposed Recommendation. However, such experience is strongly encouraged and will generally strengthen its case before the Advisory Committee. The editors of the Proposed Recommendation must respond to substantive comments from the Advisory Committee until the end of the review period. No sooner than two weeks after the end of the review period, the Director announces the outcome of the proposal to the Advisory Committee. The Director may: 1.Issue the document as a Recommendation. 2.Issue the document as a Recommendation with minor changes indicated. 3.Return the document for work as a Working Draft, with a request to the editors to address certain issues. 4.Abandon the document and remove it from the W3C agenda. Public comments are welcome, and may be sent to w3c-wai-ua@w3.org. for Tim-Berners-Lee, Director Janet Daly, Head of Public Relations
Received on Friday, 10 March 2000 14:29:44 UTC