WAI update at OZeWAI 2014

Web Accessibility Initiative
2014 Update
Andrew Arch - @amja
Digital Government Strategy, Department of Finance
Member, WAI Education & Outreach Working Group

Integrated Accessibility Standards

Who knows about:
 HTML 5.0 release?
 UAAG 2.0 status?
 Indie UI progress?
 WAI-ARIA release?
 WebVTT?

2012-14 activity
What has WAI been working on
this past year?

HTML5
 Became a Technical Recommendation in
October 2014
 Includes MathML – Browser support is
increasing
 HTML 5.1 and 5.2 under active development
Developed with material from W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) www.w3.org/WAI/

HTML5 accessibility
 Using WAI-ARIA in HTML (June 2014)
 HTML5: Techniques for providing useful text
alternatives - draft updated (Oct 2014)
 HTML5 Image Description extension
(longdesc) – Proposed Rec (Dec 2014)
 HTML5 feature accessibility support in
Windows Browsers

WCAG 2.0 clarifications
 Techniques for WCAG 2.0
 Understanding WCAG 2.0
• Both updated March & September 2014
• Understanding Techniques for WCAG
Success Criteria
• “Techniques are informative — that means
they are not required.” However, many
organisations require them, and most tools
use them as the basis for testing.

WCAG 2.0 internationalisation
 Additional authorised translations released
• Estonian – December 2013
• Portuguese (PT & BR) – October 2014
• Simplified Chinese – October 2014
 WCAG 2.0 Translations has a list of other
completed and planned translations

UAAG 2.0
 User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0
 UAAG 2.0 Reference: Explanations,
Examples, and Resources
• Updated working drafts released for both
in September 2014

ATAG 2.0
 Implementation testing – Candidate
Recommendation
• Ongoing since November 2013

W3C process
 How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines
through the W3C Process
• Working Draft(s)
• Last Call Working Draft
• Candidate Recommendation
• Proposed Recommendation
• W3C Recommendation (Web Standard)

IndieUI
 Independent User
Interface (IndieUI)
• A way for user actions to be
communicated to web
applications independently of
the device
• Events for User Interface
Independence (updated May
2014)
• User Context for web interface
preferences (updated June
2014)
• Being adopted by WebApps
Working Group

WAI-ARIA
 WAI-ARIA 1.0 finalised as Technical
Recommendation (March 2014)
 WAI-ARIA 1.0 User Agent Implementation
Guide (March 2014)
 WAI-ARIA 1.0 Authoring Practices (Editors'
Draft - April 2014)
 WAI-ARIA 1.1 commenced drafting (June
2014)

Video
 Timed Text Working Group
• Part of the Video in the Web Activity
• WebVTT: The Web Video Text Tracks Format - First
Public Working Draft published (Nov 2014)
• WebVTT files provide captions or subtitles for video
content
• Used for marking up external text track resources in
connection with the HTML5 <track> element
• Web Media Text Tracks community group

Web Accessibility Testing
 Website Accessibility Conformance
Methodology (WCAG-EM)
• Finalised – August 2014
• Five steps:
1. Define the scope
2. Explore the target website
3. Select a representative sample
4. Audit the selected sample
5. Report the evaluation findings

Testing cont …
 Easy Checks – A first review of web
accessibility
• Finalised December 2014
• Nine easy things for non-experts to check
 Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools List
• Updated database of tools
•Coming real soon 

Training resources
 Tutorials for developers
• Published
• Images
• Tables
• Forms
• In development
• Carousels
• Menus
• Page Structure

WAI groups
 Digital Publishing interest group
• part of the Digital Publishing Activity
• Bridging the Web and Digital Publishing -
presentation (October 2014)
• Bridging the Web and Digital Publishing:
EPUBWEB (November 2014)

WAI groups cont …
 Mobile Accessibility Task Force
• Develop specific mobile guidance related to
WCAG and UAAG
• Mobile a11y resources
 Cognitive Accessibility Task Force
• Develop specific guidance related to cognitive
and learning disabilities
• Cognitive Accessibility Task Force work, including
outputs and draft documents

WAI groups cont …
 W3C Community Groups
• open forums … to connect with W3C's
international community of Web experts
• Colour blind community gp (new)
• Existing accessibility groups:
• Accessible Infographics
• Accessible SVG
• CSS Accessibility
• Mobile Accessibility
• WAI-Engage: Web Accessibility

R&D Symposiums
 Accessible e-Learning
• 16 December 2013
 Accessible Way-Finding Using Web
Technologies
• 3 December 2014
 Previous Symposia Reports
• WAI Research and Development Working Group

Keeping up-to-date
 WAI home page
 WAI Highlights Archives
 WAI Interest Group
• A public group with a mailing list for
general discussion on Web accessibility
• WAI-IG mailing list archives and
subscription information
 Participate in WAI groups

WAI update at OZeWAI 2014

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