WAI Interest Group Charter

WAI IG is a well-established Interest Group with over a thousand participants. It is focused on understanding and implementing web accessibility guidelines and specifications, and increasing awareness of accessibility. The WAI IG's on-going discussion of general as well as technical issues related to web accessibility contributes to a comprehensive accessibility approach at W3C.

Join the WAI Interest Group mailing list.

Start date	06 January 2021
End date	31 December 2024
Charter Extension	See Change History
Confidentiality	Proceedings are Public.
Chair	Ashley Abaragu (Knowbility)
Initial Team Contacts (FTE %: 8)	Shawn Lawton Henry (5%), Judy Brewer (3%)
Usual Meeting Schedule	Teleconferences: No teleconferences Face-to-face: Between none and two annually

Scope

The WAI Interest Group's scope of work includes:

promoting awareness of and engagement in accessibility-related work throughout W3C groups;
augmenting review and discussion of accessibility aspects of deliverables being developed by W3C groups, including those focused on accessibility;
exploring web accessibility issues and solutions;
sharing information and exchanging ideas about web accessibility activities around the world.

Out of Scope

This group does not develop Recommendations.

Deliverables

The function of the WAI Interest Group is to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas, including augmenting the review and discussion of accessibility aspects of deliverables from W3C groups; and to engage participation into the work of those groups. The WAI IG does not directly develop deliverables, nor replace the review and development which specific accessibility-related W3C groups are chartered to do.

Success Criteria

Continued large-scale participation via mailing list subscription and postings from a broad range of stakeholders, including disability communities, research organizations, industry, government, and education; from a broad range of roles, including developers, designers, project managers, policy makers, advocates, and web users with disabilities; and from a broad range of levels, from beginners to experts in web accessibility;
Posting of review notices of accessibility-related deliverables from W3C groups, on the WAI Announcements list;
Constructive questions and discussion on accessibility aspects of these deliverables, demonstrating awareness and use of accessibility aspects of W3C deliverables and resources;
Constructive discussion of general web accessibility issues, and sharing of information and ideas for promoting web accessibility;

Coordination

W3C Groups

The WAI IG provides a forum for review and discussion of draft deliverables from the following groups, among others:

Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group (APA WG)
Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG)
ARIA Working Group (ARIA WG)
Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG)
Internationalization Working Group, to explore intersections between accessibility and internationalization

Participation

Participation in the WAI Interest Group is open to the public. There are no minimum requirements for participation in this group. Participants are strongly encouraged to take advantage of frequent opportunities to review and comment on deliverables from other groups.

The Chair may call occasional meetings consistent with W3C Process requirements for meetings.

Communication

This group uses the public mailing list w3c-wai-ig@w3.org (archive) for discussions, and the public announcements list public-wai-announce@w3.org (archive) for announcements. Specific input to documents offered for review can be made via input options specified in those documents and in the review notice posted on the WAI IG list. Information about the group is available from the WAI Interest Group home page.

Decision Policy

Consistent with its mission, this group is not a decision-making body, but rather provides a forum for discussion and advice on different topics relating to web accessibility.

Patent Disclosures

The WAI Interest Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on the topic addressed by this charter. W3C reminds Interest Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Interest Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Interest Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from Working Groups, the patent disclosure obligations for those documents do apply.

For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the W3C Patent Policy Implementation.

About this Charter

This charter for the WAI Interest Group has been created according to section 5.2.6 of the 2020 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.

Differences between this charter and the previous charter for this Group include increasing the emphasis on accessibility issues throughout W3C work.

Charter History

Following are important changes in this charter per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3):

WAI IG's previous charters: 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2015, 2018. WAI IG is renewing its charter to continue its work in support of web accessibility at W3C.

Changes in this charter include updating the mission to clarify its role in supporting other WAI groups; updating coordination to include a liaison with Internationalization; and reducing Team Contact time from 10% to 8%.

2024-01-09: Group charter extended until 2024-06-30.
2024-05-28: Group charter extended until 2024-12-31; Ashley Abaragu replaces Katie Haritos-Shea as the group chair.

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WAI Interest Group (IG) Charter