Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) Charter

The mission of the Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group is to develop strategies and resources to promote awareness, understanding, implementation, and conformance testing for W3C accessibility standards; and to support the accessibility work of other W3C Groups.

Join the Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG).

Start Date [30 June 2020]
End Date 30 June 2023
Initial Chairs Brent Bakken (Pearson), Sharron Rush (Knowbility)
Team Contacts Shawn Lawton Henry (0.35 FTE [external funds])
More information on staff support and external funds
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: Weekly. Additional teleconferences on specific topics, including Task Force topics, may also be held.
Face-to-face: EOWG usually meets during the W3C Technical Plenary week. Additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 2 per year.
Asynchronous: EOWG uses GitHub and surveys to support asynchronous contributions.

Introduction

Accessibility is a key aspect of W3C's commitment to a Web for All. W3C standards include accessibility guidelines and technical specifications. However, accessibility is not as widely known and understood as many areas of W3C work. Understanding and implementing W3C's accessibility standards is quite complex. The Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group addresses these challenges and supports W3C's mission by:

EOWG resources have proven valuable to promoting understanding, implementing, and testing conformance to W3C accessibility standards. The community relies on authoritative support from EOWG resources, for example:

This charter proposes continuing the Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group to maintain continuity of established W3C Member engagement in successfully developing deliverables consistent with W3C Process definition of a Working Group.

For additional information, including analysis of group options, list of external funds, and answers to questions that come up during charter review, see EOWG Charter 2020 Additional Information.

Scope

Activities within the scope of this Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group charter include:

  1. Develop resources that support understanding, implementing, and testing conformance to W3C accessibility standards.
  2. Update, revise, and redesign existing EOWG resources to better meet users' needs in the current environment.
  3. Conduct direct outreach activities to promote W3C accessibility standards and resources. Encourage and support other's outreach activities.
  4. Support accessibility education and outreach throughout W3C, including in Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group, Publishing@W3C activities, and other groups.

Out of Scope

EOWG will not develop W3C Recommendations.

Success Criteria

  • Updating and developing resources supporting EOWG's mission, defined in the Deliverables section below.
  • Greater use of WAI resources among W3C Members and the broader community, as indicated by tracking data and anecdotal references to WAI materials.

Deliverables

EOWG primarily develops "WAI Resources" that are stable, vetted pages on the WAI website. EOWG may publish W3C Working Group Notes during this charter period. The Working Group will contribute to and deliver the following resources:

Curricula on Web Accessibility

The curricula provide a framework for building courses, as well as comparing and procuring courses. They provide learning outcomes, teaching ideas, ideas to assess knowledge, and teaching resources. Background is in the Curricula Project Page. The first curriculum, Introduction to Web Accessibility, was used as the basis for a free online course.

Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM)

ARRM guides project managers and others to know which roles (e.g., front-end developer, visual designer, content author) are responsible for which aspects of accessibility. (It is a much more robust and vetted version of this Accessibility Responsibility Breakdown.) Background is in the ARRM Project page. The following are links are to in-progress drafts.

Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility

Easy Checks provides simple steps to help assess if a web page addresses accessibility. Information on the next iteration is in the Easy Checks Next Generation definition/requirements. It includes:

  • Update existing content
  • Add new checks for WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 success criteria
  • Redesign the resource with simple checks on first page(s) and harder checks on other page(s)
  • Provide filtering functionality to improve usefulness and usability, and make the resource shorter for most users
Web Accessibility Laws and Policies Database

Web Accessibility Laws and Policies lists governmental policies related to web accessibility.

  • Update existing listings after vetting
  • Actively research additional listings
Before and After Demonstration (BAD)

Before and After Demonstration (BAD) is a multi-page resource that shows an inaccessible website and a retrofitted version of this same website. Each web page includes annotations and has an example evaluation report.

  • Update BAD to address WCAG 2.1 success criteria, and WCAG 2.2 success criteria if resources are available
  • Update BAD to be more modern design and coding
WCAG Support Materials

WCAG supporting technical materials include Techniques for WCAG 2.1, Understanding WCAG 2.1, and How to Meet WCAG: A customizable quick reference.... Work on these may also include supplemental guidance that goes beyond WCAG requirements. Background: [https://github.com/w3c/wai-wcag-supporting-documents-redesign/wiki/Requirements-Analysis Requirements Analysis: WCAG Support Materials Redesign].

  • Update the user interface and visual design of WCAG support materials, in coordination with the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG)
Authoring Tool Accessibility Support Resources

Authoring tools are software and services that “authors” (web developers, designers, writers, etc.) use to produce web content (static web pages, dynamic web applications, etc.) Some background for the work listed below is in: Requirements Analysis for ATAG Report Tool) and (Requirements Analysis for Authoring Tools List). The following are links are to in-progress drafts.

Accessibility Evaluation Support Resources

WAI has several resources to help evaluate web accessibility. Accessibility evaluation is also called “assessment”, “audit”, and “testing”.

Video Resources

WAI video resources currently include the Video Introduction to Web Accessibility and W3C Standards, Evaluating Web Accessibility Overview videos (coming soon), and 10 Web Accessibility Perspectives videos that illustrate that accessibility is essential for some and useful for all (complication of Perspectives Videos). The following additional video series are introduced in the Video-Based Resources Project Page:

  • Develop a series of videos that illustrate the intent of each WCAG guideline and success criteria
  • Develop a series of videos that show people with disabilities using different assistive technologies and adaptive strategies, to supplement How People with Disabilities Use the Web
  • Develop videos on using Before and After Demonstration (BAD) (after it is updated) for teaching and learning
Other

EOWG will update other EOWG resources to address the current state of the art and make improvements for usability and consistency; for example, improve the translate-ability of the Accessibility Statement Generator Tool.

EOWG will contribute to accessibility education and outreach related efforts throughout W3C, such as:

  • Targeted messaging to different audiences
  • What's New in WCAG 2.2 resource
  • Material explaining the next generation of accessibility guidelines (code named “Silver”)
  • Editing and publishing some of the videos from the Introduction to Web Accessibility course
  • Accessibility issues and solutions with high-focus technologies (such as real-time communication (RTC)) and emerging technologies

If projects are defined and editor resources are available, EOWG may also develop:

Timeline

EOWG work priorities are evaluated regularly by EOWG and WAI staff. Work priorities are periodically revised based on current education and outreach needs, and the progress of deliverables in other WAI Working Groups with which EOWG has dependencies. Therefore, the priority of deliverables listed above are subject to change based on changed circumstances, and timelines below may be adjusted. Updated deliverable schedule and work status will be available on the EOWG Current Projects page.

Timeline of some major deliverables — with the latest expected date (most deliverables will likely be completed earlier):

  • September 2020: WCAG Support Materials redesign - complete requirements analysis
  • December 2020: Curriculum - publish curriculum supporting materials and Developing Accessible Content Curricula
  • March 2021: ARRM - publish public review drafts of first set of materials
  • December 2021: Curriculum - publish Designing Accessible Content Curricula, Authoring Accessible Content Curricula, and Testing Content for Accessibility Curricula
  • September 2021: WCAG Support Materials redesign - publish redesign
  • March 2022: ARRM - publish public review drafts of second set of materials
  • August 2022: Before and After Demonstration (BAD) - publish update
  • October 2023: Web Accessibility Laws and Policies Database - publish updates
  • March 2023: ARRM - publish final versions of all materials
  • June 2023: Publish updated EOWG resources to address current issues

Coordination

For all relevant resources, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, performance, privacy, and security with the relevant Working Groups, Interest Groups, and TAG, as appropriate. The Working Group will engage collaboratively with the horizontal review groups throughout development of each relevant resource.

Coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

W3C Groups

Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
Coordinate on education and outreach on WCAG 2.2 and on future accessibility guidelines. Coordinate on improving the usability of WCAG support material.
Publishing@W3C Groups
Coordinate on adding coverage of publishing issues in EOWG Resources, and on education and outreach around W3C Publishing work.
WAI Interest Group
Coordinate on reviewing EOWG Resources, and on gathering input for additional education and outreach support material.
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group
Coordinate on understandability, approachability, and ease-of-use of ARIA support resources.
Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group
Coordinate on understandability, approachability, and ease-of-use of Working Group Notes.
Internationalization Groups
Coordinate on internationalization issues in EOWG Resources, and on user interface for translations of EOWG Resources.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 10 or more active participants for its duration. Chairs and resource Editors are expected to contribute at least 6 hours per week towards the Working Group. Active participants are expected to contribute about 4 hours per week.

The group encourages W3C Member and public questions, comments, and issues on its document repositories and public mailing lists, as described in Communication.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Communication

Content 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 Editors' Drafts will be developed in a public repository and will permit direct public contribution requests. The teleconferences are not open to public participation.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group home page.

This group primarily conducts its work through teleconferences, GitHub, and surveys; and occasionally uses wiki and the e-mail list w3c-wai-eo@w3.org (archive) for communication. 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 3.3). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with the group participants 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 and/or web-based survey). 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 or the Director.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 3.4, Votes) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Disclosures

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

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Document License for some of its deliverables, and for deliverables that are intended to be modified, it will use a more clearly permissive Creative Commons license (CC-BY) or the W3C Software and Document License.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 5.2 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 Changes

This section lists important changes in this charter; the rationale for the changes is in the Introduction, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.3).

EOWG's previous charters: 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2017. The EOWG is renewing its charter in order to continue developing education and outreach resources supporting web accessibility.

The main additions from the previous charter are:

  • WCAG Support Materials
  • Curricula on Web Accessibility
  • Before and After Demonstration (BAD)
  • Authoring Tool Accessibility Support Resources
  • Accessibility Roles and Responsibilities Mapping (ARRM)
  • Video Resources