DRAFT Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Charter

The mission of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG) is to develop specifications to support making implementations of web technologies accessible for people with disabilities, and to develop and maintain implementation support materials.

Join the Accessibility Guidelines 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 [dd monthname yyyy] (date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved)
End date [dd monthname yyyy] (Start date + 2 years)
Chairs
  • Alastair Campbell (Nomensa)
  • Rachael Montgomery (Library of Congress)
Team Contacts
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: weekly
In-person: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional in-person meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.

Motivation and Background

Digital accessibility means that websites, apps, tools, and technologies are designed and developed so that people with disabilities can use them. Accessibility encompasses all disabilities that affect access to the digital content. This also benefits older users and people without disabilities. Accessible design improves overall user experience and satisfaction, especially in a variety of situations, and across different devices. It is essential that several different components of development and interaction work together in order for the digital content to be accessible to people with disabilities. These components include content technologies, web content, web browsers and media players, assistive technology, users, developers, authoring tools, and evaluation tools. Additional technologies such as mobile, virtual reality, and applications partially incorporate web technologies and benefit from digital accessibility guidance. Groups in the Web Accessibility Initiative work together to address accessibility for all the components.

The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group describes the characteristics of accessible digital content, in the form of guidance to content creators. It also describes support from other components needed for its advice to work, such as technologies, user agents, and authoring tools. Guidelines from this Working Group are widely used by developers and implementers, referenced in regulations and policy, and benefit all users.

Scope

WCAG 3

The primary focus of this charter will be to publish a Candidate Recommendation Snapshot for the W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3. This publication will include:

  • A set of guidelines and requirements that covers the scope of WCAG 2.2 plus additional provisions that meet the needs of web users and can be applied to non-web digital content,
  • A conformance model,
  • Informative user needs for each guideline,
  • At least one method for each requirement, and
  • At least one informative test for each requirement.
  • Additional informative reference documents to support WCAG 3, for example, "Standard keyboard navigation-operation keys and techniques".

WCAG benefits from extensive informative materials that help readers understand the requirements, why they are important, and how to test them. These support materials will be developed in line with the core recommendation but are not necessary before its publication

Deliverables and timelines for WCAG 3 are further described in the WCAG 3 project plan.

WCAG 3 Interim publications

WCAG 3 seeks to address issues with WCAG 2 that were identified by previous work by the Silver TF. This is captured in Requirements for WCAG 3.0. There is a significant amount of work to do before the recommendation track document is complete. However, there may be opportunities to release resources that cover mature and contained parts of WCAG 3 that could help with improving accessibility. For example, the work on color contrast, assertions or user testing.

WCAG 3 Policy support

The working group will explore an explainer resource for policy makers on considerations for implementing WCAG 3 as part of broader accessibility policy.

This includes exploring considerations for dealing with:

  • Third party content,
  • How to handle bugs,
  • How to consider emerging technologies, and
  • Issues with and approaches to scaling conformance to handle large or rapidly updated content.

WCAG 2 Maintenance

The working group will continue to maintain WCAG 2. In order to do that, AG may publish a normative update in this charter period to address issues with the internationalization of WCAG 2. For example, the current handling of text presentation for non-Latin script languages means that readers of those languages with disabilities are offered no support. If a normative update is needed to resolve these challenges, then a limited number of changes to address interpretation issues may also be considered. This additional work would not include new success criteria beyond that which might be required to address known internationalization issues. Overall the work will primarily be done by the WCAG 2 task force, and whole-group meeting time on this topic would be time-boxed. For example, 30 minutes every two weeks. If an issue cannot reach consensus then the current text remains.

The working group will address open WCAG 2 issues and public feedback through the WCAG 2 TF. The TF maintains Understanding WCAG 2 and WCAG 2 Techniques as informative support materials that help with interpretation and education for its normative guidance.

Non WCAG activities

The group develops and maintains extensive accessibility supporting materials. During this charter period, AG plans to:

Out of Scope

The following features are out of scope, and will not be addressed by this Working group.

  • The AG WG is not, and does not aspire to be, the central repository for accessibility support data.
  • The AG WG does not perform conformance evaluations and reviews.

Deliverables

Updated document status is available on the group publication status page.

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.

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0

This specification presents a new model and guidelines to make digital content and applications accessible to people with disabilities. It supports a wide set of user needs, uses new approaches to testing, and allows frequent maintenance of guidelines and related content to keep pace with technology change. WCAG 3.0 supports this evolution by focusing on users' functional needs.

Draft state: Editor's Draft

Expected completion: Q4 2027

Exclusion Draft: W3C Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 3.0 W3C First Public Working Draft. Exclusion period began on 2021-01-21 and ended on 2021-06-20

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2019/12/ag-charter.

Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules Format 1.1

This specification defines the format, logic, and implementation of accessibility test rules.

Draft state: Candidate Recommendation

Expected completion: Q1 2026

Exclusion Draft: Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules Format 1.1 W3C Candidate Recommendation Snapshot. Exclusion period began on 2025-08-19 and ended on 2025-10-18.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2023/11/ag-charter.

Maintenance of WCAG 2 may result in the need for a new version of the normative specification. While this is not a priority it is recognized that it may be necessary to address egregious issues.

Maintenance of Existing Specifications

The Working Group will maintain the following W3C normative specifications:

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible. Following these guidelines will make content more accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including accommodations for blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these, and some accommodation for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations; but will not address every user need for people with these disabilities. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also often make Web content more usable to users in general.

Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules Format 1.1

Defines a format for writing accessibility test rules for automated testing tools and manual testing methodologies. It can be used for evaluation to different accessibility standards, such as the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Other Deliverables

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.
  • A mapping document of WCAG 3 to WCAG 2 requirements.

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

Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
Provide input into other W3C groups on accessibility requirements, and coordinate on development and adoption of functional needs and maturity model.
ARIA Working Group
Review and help develop WCAG 2.x Techniques for WAI-ARIA.
Cascading Style Sheets Working Group
Advise on WCAG conformance interpretations of CSS features.
Internationalization Working Group
Ensure that references to internationalization techniques are correct, and to ensure that language can be translated successfully.
WAI Interest Group
Provide input on group deliverables and explore ideas for consideration and further development.

External Organizations

This section is a non-exclusive list of organizations that may take up WAI guidelines into policies. The Working Group seeks to develop standards that can be incorporated into policies globally and expects to accomplish this through broad review and involvement. AG WG will liaise with these organizations at key stages but recommends direct participation in the Working Group where possible.

U.S. Access Board
Review of specification
Canadian Accessibility Standards Development Organization which may administer C-81 the Accessible Canada Act
Review of specification
European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
Establish liaison with the ETSI Human Factors Technical Committee for collaboration and specification review.
European Committee for Standardization (CEN)
Review of specification
European Commission
Review of specification
National Information Society Agency (NIA)
Review of specification
RERC for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies
Review of specification
RERC on Universal Interface and Information Technology Access
Review of specification
Chinese Disabled People's Federation (CDPF)
Review of specification
Japanese Industry Standards Organization (JIS)
Review of specification

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, Invited Experts 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.

Key implementers of WCAG (desktop and non-desktop environments) include Web content developers (page authors, site designers, etc.), Web authoring tool developers, Web accessibility evaluation tool developers, user agent tool developers, and people with disabilities.

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 make technical contributions for ongoing work, provided they agree 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 Accessibility Guidelines Working Group home page.

This group conducts discussion on the public mailing list w3c-wai-gl@w3.org (archive) and in the WCAG 3 and WCAG 2 Github repositories. Task forces and sub-groups may use additional lists or other communication mechanisms documented on their home pages. Discussion of issues for specific deliverables generally takes place in the GitHub repository identified for the deliverable. 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 5-10 working days, 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 6 October 1997 <not set> Develop Understanding Web Access Issues, later named Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0; document supporting quicklists.
Rechartered 2001 18 June 2001 May 2002, extended to June 2004 Add WCAG 2.0 and supporting techniques to its deliverables.
Rechartered 2005 1 January 2005 31 December 2006; extended to 30 April 2007, 31 December 2007, 30 June 2008, 31 December 2008, 30 June 2009, 9 August 2009 Incorporation of Quality Assurance (QA) Framework into its mission; updated descriptions of supporting deliverables for WCAG 2.0, especially including test suites and implementation reports; updated dependency statements; updated language where necessary to align with June 2003 W3C Process Document.
Rechartered 2010 14 September 2010 30 June 2013; extended to 30 September 2013, 18 May 2015, 15 July 2015, and 24 September 2015 Transitioned to maintain support resources for WCAG 2.0.
Rechartered 2015 24 September 2015 31 July 2018 Added recommendation-track work in the form of extensions to WCAG 2.0; increased focus on work to address needs related to mobile devices, cognitive impairments and learning disabilities, digital learning materials, and low vision; more work on accessibility support documentation and testing.
Rechartered 2017 27 January 2017 31 October 2019, extended to 31 December 2019 Changing from publishing normative extensions for multiple topics to a consolidated WCAG 2.1 and adding new publication for Accessibility Conformance Testing Framework 1.0.
New Co-Chair 27 February 2018 Alastair Campbell joins Andrew Kirkpatrick as co-chair; Joshue O Connor steps down as co-chair.
Rechartered 2019 19 December 2019 31 October 2022 Added WCAG 2.2 and moved previously incubated Silver to Recommendation Track.
New Co-Chairs 4 March 2020 Chuck Adams and Rachael Montgomery join Alastair Campbell as co-chairs; Andrew Kirkpatrick steps down as co-chair.
Chair Affiliation 24 September 2021 Rachael Montgomery re-appointed as group chair after affiliation changed.
Charter Extension 28 October 2022 31 October 2023 Charter extended until 30 April 2023.
Charter extended until 31st October 2023.
Rechartered 2023 3 November 2023 31 October 2025 Shift in focus to WCAG 3 and ongoing updates of non-normative resources for WCAG 2.x
Rechartered 2025 dd MMM 2025 dd MMM 2027 Continue work on WCAG 3 and ongoing updates of non-normative resources for WCAG 2

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.