The Requirements for W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0 documentation is the next phase of development of the next major upgrade to accessibility guidelines. WCAG 3.0 will be the successor to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 series. The Silver Task Force of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and the W3C Silver Community group have partnered to incubate the needs, requirements, and structure for the new accessibility guidance. To date, the group has:
The Requirements for WCAG 3.0 is published as a joint effort of the Silver Task Force of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and of the W3C Silver Community Group. It is a work in progress, and comments are welcome as Github Issues or by email.
This is the second phase of the Requirements developed during Q1 2019 after months of prototyping work. We anticipate one additional phase in Q3-Q4 2019 after months of evaluating how well actual content can be developed for WCAG 3.0.
People with disabilities can face problems using online content and applications. Disabilities can be permanent, temporary, or recurring limitations.
We need guidance that:
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 was designed to be technology neutral, and has stayed relevant for over 10 years. Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 has been implemented in the open source authoring tool communities (chiefly Wordpress and Drupal) with little known uptake in commercial authoring tools. User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0 offers useful guidance to user agent developers and has been implemented on an individual success criterion basis. There is no known user agent that has implemented all of UAAG 2.0.
WCAG 3.0 builds on the WCAG 2.0 Requirements of 2006. The WCAG 2.0 requirements are:
WCAG 3.0 wishes to advance the WCAG 2.0 Requirements of:
WCAG 3.0 does not want to advance the WCAG 2.0 requirement: "Ensure that the revision is 'backwards and forward compatible'" . The intention is to include WCAG 2.x content, but migrate it to a different structure and conformance model.
The WCAG 2.1 Requirements are very specific to WCAG 2.1 and will not be advanced by WCAG 3.0. WCAG 3.0 plans to migrate the content of WCAG 2.1 to WCAG 3.0, but the WCAG 2.1 Requirements document referred to structural requirements which are specific to WCAG 2.x.
The WCAG 2.1 Requirements are:
WCAG 3.0 will have a broader scope than WCAG 2.0 and 2.1. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are scoped to Web and to Content. WCAG 3.0 is being designed to be able to include:
The current project design does not intend to write separate specifications or normative requirements for the technology stack beyond digital content. The goal is to provide information that technology venders can choose to use to improve the accessibility of their products to support the guidelines.
Introductory text about the research efforts undertaken, with pointers to methodology and results
The research done in 2017-2018 by the Silver Task Force, the Silver Community Group, and the research partners was used to identify the key problem statements related to the current accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.x, ATAG 2.0 and UAAG 2.0). See the Silver Research Summary slides for more detailed information. These problem statements were used to identify the opportunities for WCAG 3.0 to address that will improve accessibility guidance.
A recurring theme identified in the year of WCAG 3.0 research was the popularity and quality of the WCAG 2.0 guidance. Most of the opportunities identified in the research were improvements in the structure and presentation of accessibility guidance to improve usability, support more disability needs, and improve maintenance.
In addition to the above research, an issue was raised about how to apply accessibility evaluation and conformance to large and dynamic web sites which are updated frequently. This led to development of Challenges with Accessibility Guidelines Conformance and Testing, and Approaches for Mitigating Them. Suggestions in that document are an additional source of input to these requirements.
This document has two sections: a Design Principles section and a Requirements section. Requirements need to be measured or clearly demonstrated. They are used at the W3C phase of Candidate Recommendation, where the Candidate Recommendation Transition Request reports that the requirements were met. Design Principles are important statements that are less measurable, but are used to guide, shape and steer decision-making during the development process of WCAG 3.0. Both are essential in guiding the development of the WCAG 3.0 project.
The Problem Statements describe areas identified during the WCAG 3.0 research in 2017-2018 that can be addressed in the new guidelines. Each problem statement also has an opportunity section that is the basis for the WCAG 3.0 Requirements.
There are several areas for exploration in how conformance can work. These opportunities may or may not be incorporated. They need to work together, and that interplay will be governed by the design principles
This section is exploratory. Outstanding questions that need to be addressed include:
The Issue Severity Subgroup:
The WCAG 3.0 Design Principles are based on the requirements of WCAG 2.0 and build on those requirements to meet needs identified in the WCAG 3.0 research.
Accessibility guidelines should:
The creation process for the guidelines should:
Previous W3C Accessibility Guidelines described how to make web pages accessible to people with disabilities. These guidelines provided a flexible framework that has kept the guidelines relevant for 10 years. Changing technology and changing needs of people with disabilities has shown areas where they could be improved. The requirements are drawn from the research performed by WCAG 3.0 to improve the guidelines, and the suggestions from the Silver Design Sprint.
The WCAG 3.0 Requirements are high level and will be expanded and refined as Silver members move through the prototyping process.
The guidance includes requirements that are not available in WCAG 2.x. Some guidance may use true/false verification but other guidance will use other ways of measuring and/or evaluating where appropriate so that more needs of people with disabilities may be included (for example: rubrics, sliding scale, task-completion, user research with people with disabilities, and more). This approach includes particular attention to people whose needs may better be met with a broad testing strategy, such as people with low vision, limited vision, or cognitive and learning disabilities.
The informative documentation uses a process that is easy to update and maintain. The process of developing the guidance includes experts who review the guidelines to check they will work for emerging technologies and interactions.
The Guidelines can be presented in different accessible and usable ways or formats, to address the needs of different audiences.
Guidance is expressed in technology-neutral terms so that it can be met using different platforms or technologies. The intent of technology-neutral wording is to provide the opportunity to apply the core guidelines to current and emerging technology, even if specific technical advice doesn't yet exist.
Requirements in WCAG 3 for plain language shall be applied to WCAG 3. It is desirable for the guidelines to be understandable by the widest possible audience.
Requirements are written to facilitate adoption into law, regulation, or policy, since this has been shown to have major impact on practice. This includes:
The Guidelines motivate organizations to go beyond minimal accessibility requirements with a conformance model that shows which organizations demonstrate a greater effort to improve accessibility
WCAG 3 will provide guidance and a conformance model suitable for people and organizations that produce digital assets and technology of varying size and complexity. This includes large, dynamic, and complex websites. The scope of the associated informative materials will include guidance for a diverse group of stakeholders including content creators, browsers, authoring tools, assistive technologies, and more.
The WCAG 3 guidelines document shall meet its own requirements where relevant. (Some requirements may apply to organisations or scenarios not relevent to the development of a standard.)