This is good news for all of us who use assistive technology to browse
and use the internet and those who just find it a real pain to do so.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: User Agent Accessibility Guidelines promoted to W3C
Proposed Recommendation
Resent-Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 22:35:16 -0500 (EST)
Resent-From: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 22:34:24 -0500
From: Judy Brewer <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
WAI Interest Group:
The following message, sent today to the User Agent Guidelines Working
Group mailing list, gives background on the User Agent Accessibility
Guidelines (UAAG) moving to Proposed Recommendation.
Congratulations to the User Agent Guidelines Working Group.
- Judy
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 14:29:38 -0500
From: Janet Daly <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Organization: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Subject: Announcement: W3C Promotes User Agent Accesibility Guidelines
1.0
to Proposed Recommendation
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 [log in to unmask], 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 [log in to unmask] (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 [log in to unmask]
for Tim-Berners-Lee, Director
Janet Daly, Head of Public Relations
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