PROPOSED Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Interest Group Charter

The mission of the WAI Interest Group (IG) is to promote awareness of and engagement in W3C accessibility work. This includes augmenting wide review of accessibility aspects of W3C specifications, Group Notes, research topics, implementation support, and educational resources.

Join the WAI Interest Group mailing list.

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

Charter Status See the group status page.
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 Ashley Abaragu (Knowbility)
Team Contacts Shawn Lawton Henry (0.08 FTE)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: Teleconferences are not on a set schedule and may be planned for specific topics.
Face-to-face: In-person hybrid meetings maybe held, usually no more than 1 per year.

Motivation and Background

WAI IG is a well-established Interest Group with over 2,500 participants in the email lists. WAI IG contributes to a comprehensive accessibility approach at W3C.

WAI IG provides a forum for sharing information on accessibility activities at W3C and around the world, and exploring accessibility issues and solutions. The WAI IG actively encourages contributions to W3C deliverables from industry, government, research, academia, people with disabilities, and others interested in accessibility.

WAI IG connects those who want to be informed of W3C accessibility work and share input on accessibility issues. Some subscribed to the mailing lists participate in one W3C working group and want to be informed of work in other groups; most do not participate in other W3C groups.

Reaching beyond those active in other W3C work to increase awareness of W3C accessibility materials and soliciting input on developing materials is a key aspect of W3C's mission related to accessibility. The WAI IG mailing lists historically served as a primary method for this connection; and while other methods such as social media are now also used, the WAI IG mailing lists continue to be an important method for connection with W3C accessibility work.

Scope

The WAI Interest Group's scope includes:

Out of scope:

  • Development of technical specifications
  • Consistent with W3C's Antitrust and competition policy, the group will not discuss specific products or implementations

Deliverables

This Group reviews deliverables of other Groups and reviews WAI resources. The Group does not plan to develop additional deliverables.

Success Criteria

This Interest Group expects to follow the W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG) Web Platform Design Principles.

Coordination

For relevant issues, this Interest Group will seek additional input on accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG.

Additional coordination with the following Groups may be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

The WAI Interest Group will also coordinate with relevant W3C Community Groups (CG), such as the Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM) CG, Advancing Accessibility Resources CG, and Accessibility Internationalization CG. This includes reviewing documents developed by a CG that are published on the WAI subsite.

Participation

The WAI Interest Group is open to the public; W3C Membership is not a prerequisite. To participate anyone can:

Participants in the group are required to follow the W3C Code of Conduct.

Communication

Discussions of this Interest Group are conducted in public. This group primarily conducts its work via the public mailing list w3c-wai-ig@w3.org (archive). The public is invited to review, discuss, and contribute to this Interest Group.

Announcements from W3C staff are communicated through the public mailing list public-wai-announce@w3.org (archive).

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; rather, it provides a forum for discussion and advice on web accessibility topics.

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 Disclosures

The 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 do apply. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Licensing

The W3C Software and Document license would apply for all 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

A list of previous charters is available.

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 18 June 2001 31 October 2002 -
Charter extended 31 October 2002 31 August 2004 -
Rechartered 21 December 2004 19 December 2007 -
Charter extended 20 December 2007 30 June 2008 -
Charter extended 1 July 2008 31 December 2008 -
Charter extended 1 January 2009 30 June 2009 -
Charter extended 1 July 2009 9 August 2010 -
Rechartered 14 September 2010 30 June 2013 -
Charter extended 1 July 2013 30 September 2013 -
Charter extended 1 October 2013 18 May 2015 -
Charter extended 19 May 2015 15 July 2015 -
Charter extended 16 July 2015 13 August 2015 -
Rechartered 18 March 2016 31 December 2017 -
Charter extended 1 January 2018 31 March 2018 -
Rechartered 25 April 2018 31 March 2020 -
Charter extended 1 April 2020 30 September 2020 -
Charter extended 1 October 2020 20 November 2020 -
Rechartered 6 January 2021 5 January 2024 -
Charter extended 6 January 2024 30 June 2024 -
Charter extended 1 July 2024 31 December 2024 -