Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group Charter

The mission of the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group is to enhance the accessibility of web content through the development of supplemental attributes, including roles, states, and other properties, that can be applied to native host language elements and exposed via platform accessibility APIs.

Join the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group.

Because the charter template is a moving target, this charter will need to be updated at W3M review time for diffs accumulated at that point.

Start date 7 February 2022
End date 31 January 2024
Charter extension See Change History.
Chairs James Nurthen (Adobe)
Team Contacts Michael Cooper (0.30 FTE Primary TC), Ruoxi Ran (0.1 FTE, Publication support, ARIA integration)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: The Working Group and its Task Forces generally each hold weekly teleconferences, but this may vary over time according to agenda and preferences.
Face-to-face: The Working Group generally meets during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 2 per year.

Scope

Out of Scope

The following features are out of scope, and will not be addressed by this Working Group:

  • Technologies for which corresponding Accessibility API Mappings do not need to be defined.

Deliverables

In order to maximize the likelihood of achieving the success criteria described below, the ARIA Working Group will follow a work flow designed to see each feature from its road map through to completion, with ARIA feature development, platform accessibility API mapping, implementation, testing, and authoring guidance taking place at the same time.

More detailed milestones and updated publication schedules are available on the group publication status page.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state. For deliverables marked as “living standard”, the Working Group intends to publish the latest state of their work as Candidate Recommendation (with Snapshots). The Working Group will publish Recommendations approximately every two years for specifications that define technology features. The Working Group will not publish Recommendation versions of Accessibility API Mappings because they define mappings to accessibility APIs, which may be updated independent of the ARIA technology.

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

HTML Accessibility API Mappings (living standard)
Latest publication: 17-Aug-2020
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html-aam-1.0-20150407/
associated Call for Exclusion on 09-Apr-2015 ended on 06-Sep-2015
Produced under Working Group Charter:
Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.1
Latest publication: 2021-08-26
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-dpub-aria-1.1-20210826/
associated Call for Exclusion on 2021-08-26
Exclusion opportunity will end on 2022-01-23
Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html
SVG Accessibility API Mappings 1.0
Latest publication: 2018-05-10
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-svg-aam-1.0-20150226/
associated Call for Exclusion on 2015-02-26 ended on 2015-07-26
Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/charter201006
Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 (living standard)
Latest publication: 2021-08-26
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/WD-dpub-aria-1.1-20210826/
associated Call for Exclusion on 2021-08-26
Exclusion opportunity will end on 2022-01-23 Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2
Latest publication: 02-Mar-2021
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/CR-wai-aria-1.2-20210302/
associated Call for Exclusion on 02-Mar-2021 Exclusion opportunity will end on 01-May-2021
Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html
Core Accessibility API Mappings (living standard)
Latest publication: 18-Dec-2019
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/WD-core-aam-1.2-20180719/
associated Call for Exclusion on 19-Jul-2018 ended on 16-Dec-2018
Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/2015/10/aria-charter
Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.2 (living standard)
Latest publication: 11-Jul-2019
Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2019/WD-accname-1.2-20190711/
associated Call for Exclusion on 11-Jul-2019 ended on 08-Dec-2019
Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html

Other Deliverables

As described above and in the work flow, the Working Group will create a test suite and implementation report for the specification. In addition, other non-normative documents may be created such as use case and requirement documents.

The Working Group also expects to collaborate with other groups which produce ARIA and/or Accessibility API Mappings specifications to ensure that all ARIA modules and Accessibility API Mappings specifications are consistent with one another regardless of the producer.

The Working Group will also produce WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices, a comprehensive support resource for the WAI-ARIA suite but not published as a Technical Report itself. In further support of that guidance, the Working Group will work with developers of the ARIA-AT application to help achieve consistent implementation of the guidance across tools.

Other non-normative documents may be created such as:

  • Use case and requirement documents;
  • Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
  • Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.

Timeline

The Working Group maintains a detailed project plan that provides target dates, updated as needed.

Success Criteria

The normative documents produced by this Working Group fall into two categories: ARIA specifications and Accessibility API Mapping specifications.

Modules that reach W3C Recommendation are considered successful when all of the following are present:

In order to advance to Proposed Recommendation, each normative specification is expected to have at least two independent implementations of every feature defined in the specification.

Each specification should contain separate sections detailing all known security and privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and end users.

There should be testing plans for each specification, starting from the earliest drafts.

To promote interoperability, all changes made to specifications should have tests.

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD. The Working Group is encouraged to engage collaboratively with the horizontal review groups throughout development of each specification. The Working Group is advised to seek a review at least 3 months before first entering CR and is encouraged to proactively notify the horizontal review groups when major changes occur in a specification following a review.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Group
Work on HTML 5 and ARIA Techniques for WCAG 2.2.
Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
Collaborate on joint deliverables.
CSS Working Group
Coordinate media queries support for context awareness. Provide requirements for future WAI-ARIA support. Coordinate on general CSS accessibility topics.
EPUB 3 Working Group
Coordinate development of digital publishing roles and EPUB Accessibility 1.1.
Internationalization Working Group
Coordinate how to address accessibility and internationalization in W3C specs.
Technical Architecture Group
Confirm the ARIA relationship to various host languages is interoperable and forwards-compatible.
Privacy Interest Group
Identify and resolve privacy implications of features of the technology that capture user environment information, particularly specific assistive technology being used, in order to customize the user experience.
SVG Working Group
Coordinate on graphics role module and SVG Accessibility API Mappings.
Web Platform Working Group
Implementation of ARIA and HTML Accessibility API Mappings, coordinate development of APIs that address accessibility use cases, and work on other joint deliverables including Canvas 2D Context.

External Organizations

DAISY Consortium
Coordinate on publishing and math accessibility API mappings.
IMS Global Learning Consortium
Coordinate on features that impact e-learning and testing.
WHATWG
Coordination on integration of ARIA in HTML and Web Components.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementers of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the (Working|Interest) Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication.

The group also welcomes non-Members to contribute technical submissions for consideration upon their agreement to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed in public repositories and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however, except by explicit one-time invitation from the chair(s).

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group

This group uses the public mailing list public-aria@w3.org (archive) and several GitHub repositories. Additional communication channels are also used. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-confidential mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.1). The Working Group maintains specific procedures to establish and measure consensus and address objections in the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group Decision Policy. All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available, or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs or the Director.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Votes) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 15 September 2020). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Web specifications that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 5.2 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):

Charter Period Start Date End Date Changes
Initial Charter 22 October 2015 31 July 2018 none
Charter Extension 6 September 2018 31 October 2018 none
Rechartered 8 November 2018 31 October 2021
  • Clarified mission to focus exclusively on WAI-ARIA and Accessibility API Mappings (AAMs);
  • Clarified dependency on other groups for several ARIA modules;
  • Updated Success Criteria to describe successful testing procedure for ARIA and AAMs;
  • Removed User Context as a deliverable; the evolution of it, Pesonalization Semantics; is being transferred to the APA Working Group;
  • Produced annual dot-release publications of ARIA and supporting specifications beginning Q4 2019, with features prioritized according to the roadmap;
  • Adopted a concrete workflow for feature acceptance to add predictability to timelines;
  • Clarified participation and communication procedures;
  • Added licensing section to specify the W3C Document license for Recommendation-track deliverables and the W3C Software and Document license for others;
  • Staff effort increased from .25 FTE to .4 FTE to provide additional support for project management, inter-group coordination on related ARIA specifications, and publication.
Charter Extension 19 November 2021 31 January 2022 none
Rechartered 7 February 2022 31 January 2024 Changes from the previous charter (diff from previous charter):
  • Switch to Evergreen for certain specs.