PROPOSED 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.

This proposed charter is available on GitHub. Feel free to raise issues.

Charter Status See the group status page and detailed change history.
Start date 01 January 2025
End date 1 January 2027 (2 years)
Chairs James Nurthen (Adobe), Valerie Young (Igalia)
Team Contacts Daniel Montalvo (0.50 FTE)
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.

Motivation and Background

The Accessible Rich Internet Application suite has consistently provided mechanisms to make rich internet applications and other complex web user interfaces accessible to people with disabilities.

The suite consists of:

The Working Group plans to continue developing these technical specifications to:

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.

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 Recommendation", the Working Group intends to publish a snapshot of each of the document as a W3C recommendation before the Charter period ends.

Normative Specifications

The Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group will continue to deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) (Living Recommendation)

This specification provides an ontology of roles, states, and properties that define accessible user interface elements and can be used to improve the accessibility and interoperability of web content and applications.

Draft state: First Public Working Draft

Expected completion: Q3 2026

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/WD-wai-aria-1.3-20240123/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/WD-wai-aria-1.3-20240123/

Exclusion period began: 2024-01-23; Exclusion period ends: 2024-06-21.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

Core Accessibility API Mappings (Living Recommendation)

This specification defines how WAI-ARIA roles, states, and properties are expected to be exposed by user agents via platform accessibility APIs.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation Draft

Expected completion: Q1 2026

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2023/CRD-core-aam-1.2-20231102/

Exclusion Draft:https://www.w3.org/TR/2022/CR-core-aam-1.2-20221122/

Exclusion period began 2022-11-22; Exclusion period ended 2023-01-21.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.2 (Living Recommendation)

This document describes how user agents determine the names and descriptions of accessible objects from web content languages.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: Q1 2025

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/WD-accname-1.2-20240429/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2019/WD-accname-1.2-20190711/ Exclusion period began 2019-07-11; Exclusion period ended 2019-12-08.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html

HTML Accessibility API Mappings (Living Recommendation)

This specification defines how user agents map HTML [HTML] elements and attributes to platform accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs). It leverages and extends the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2 and the Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.1 for use with the HTML host language. Documenting these mappings promotes interoperable exposure of roles, states, properties, and events implemented by accessibility APIs and helps to ensure that this information appears in a manner consistent with author intent.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: Q3 2025

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/WD-html-aam-1.0-20240418/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html-aam-1.0-20150407/

Exclusion period began 2015-04-09; Exclusion period ended 2015-09-06.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2013/09/html-charter

ARIA in HTML (Living Recommendation)

This specification defines the authoring rules (author conformance requirements) for the use of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.2 and Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0 attributes on [HTML] elements.

Draft state: Adopted from Web Applications WG

Expected completion: Q3 2025

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/REC-html-aria-20240507/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2021/CR-html-aria-20210706/ Exclusion period began 2021-07-06; Exclusion period ended: 2021-09-04..

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2020/12/webapps-wg-charter.html

Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.1 (Living Recommendation)

This specification is a modular extension of WAI-ARIA designed for the digital publishing industry.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Expected completion: Q2 2025

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/CR-dpub-aria-1.1-20240227/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/CR-dpub-aria-1.1-20240227/

Exclusion period began 2024-02-27; Exclusion period ended 2024-04-27

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 (Living Recommendation)

This specification enables authors to produce more accessible e-books, by conveying structural book constructs used by the digital publishing industry to assistive technologies. It does this by extending the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1 [CORE-AAM-1.1] and the Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.2 [ACCNAME-1.2] specifications for user agents. It provides Accessibility API Mapping guidance for the roles defined in the Digital Publish WAI-ARIA Module.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Expected completion: Q2 2025

Adopted Draft:https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/CR-dpub-aam-1.1-20240227/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/CR-dpub-aam-1.1-20240227/

Exclusion period began 2024-02-27; Exclusion period ended 2024-04-27.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

WAI-ARIA Graphics Module

This specification defines a WAI-ARIA 1.1 [WAI-ARIA-1.1] module of core roles specific to web graphics. These semantics allow an author to express the logical structure of the graphic to assistive technologies in order improve accessibility of graphics.

Draft state: W3C Recommendation

Expected completion: Q4 2025

Adopted Draft:https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/REC-graphics-aria-1.0-20181002/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-graphics-aria-1.0-20180329/

Exclusion period began 20181002; Exclusion period ended 2018-05-28.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2015/10/aria-charter.html

Graphics Accessibility API Mappings

The Graphics Accessibility API Mappings defines how user agents map the WAI-ARIA Graphics Module [GRAPHICS-ARIA-1.0] markup to platform accessibility APIs.

Draft state: W3C Recommendation

Expected completion: Q4 2026

Adopted Draft:https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-graphics-aam-1.0-20180329/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/CR-graphics-aam-1.0-20180329/

Exclusion period began 20181002; Exclusion period ended 2018-05-28.

Exclusion Draft Charter: https://www.w3.org/2015/10/aria-charter.html

SVG Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 (Living Recommendation)

This specification defines how user agents map Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) [SVG2] markup to platform accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs).

Draft state: Working Draft Joint deliverable with the SVG Working Group

Expected completion: Q3 2026

Adopted Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2018/WD-svg-aam-1.0-20180510/

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-svg-aam-1.0-20150226/

Exclusion period began 2015-02-26; Exclusion period ended 2015-07-26.

Exclusion Draft Charter: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/charter201006

PDF Accessibility API Mappings 1.0 (Living Recommendation)

This specification will define how user agents map PDF elements and attributes to platform accesssibility application programming interfaces (APIs).

Draft state: No draft

Expected completion: Q3 2025

Other Deliverables

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

The Working Group intends to collaborate with other Working Groups and relevant stakeholders to update ARIA modules as needed.

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.

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

In order to advance beyond Candidate 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 in Candidate Recommendation or to features that have deployed implementations should have tests. Testing efforts should be declared in the Web Platform Tests project.

This Working Group expects to follow the TAG Web Platform Design Principles.

All new features should have expressions of interest from at least two potential implementors before being incorporated in the specification.

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, 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 overall accessibility architectural aspects of ARIA.
CSS Working Group
Coordinate media queries support for context awareness. Provide requirements for future WAI-ARIA support. Coordinate on general CSS accessibility topics. Include CSS-AAM requirements in the hTML-AAM specification.
Publishing Maintenance Working Group
Coordinate development of digital publishing roles and EPUB Accessibility.
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.

External Organizations

DAISY Consortium
Coordinate on publishing and math accessibility API mappings.
Coordinate on features that impact e-learning and testing.
WHATWG
Coordinating 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 implementors 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 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 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.

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 home page.

Most Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work through GitHub issues and Pull Requests on the ARIA repositories. It also uses the public mailing list public-aria@w3.org (archive). 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, Consensus). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress and consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue or web-based survey), with a response period from four working days to one week, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

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.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Deciding by Vote) 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 licensing information.

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 3.4 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 4.3, Advisory Committee Review of a Charter):

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, Personalization 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.
New co-chair 13 April 2022 Valerie Young appointed as co-chair, replacing Joanmarie Diggs who stepped down in September 2021.
Proposed Charter October 2024
  • All specifications marked as "Living Recommendations", except for Graphics-ARIA and Graphics-AAM, but all will be published at least once to REC during the new Charter period
  • Added PDF-AAM to the list of deliverables
  • Marked SVG-AAM as a joint deliverable with the SVG Working Group
  • Clarified scope for HTML-ARIA
Rechartered

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.