Participating in WAI

Introduction

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) provides an international forum for collaboration between industry, disability organizations, accessibility researchers, government, and others interested in web accessibility.

We encourage individuals and organizations around the world to participate in activities that help improve accessibility of the web.

After you read this page, if you have any questions about getting involved with WAI or would like more information, please send specific questions to Shawn@w3.org with CC to wai@w3.org.

Getting News of Drafts for Review

Draft documents for review are listed on the WAI home page and News page.

You can subscribe to get announcements via e-mail, Atom/RSS feed, or Twitter from Get WAI News.

Participating in Guidelines and Groups

See How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute to learn how WAI works through a process designed to:

• ensure broad community input, and
• encourage consensus development.

Reviewing Guidelines and Documents

WAI welcomes comments on documents at any time. Comments are handled differently depending on the stage of document development. See the “Feedback on Specific Documents” section of Contacting WAI for where to send comments.

One of the best times to comment on developing documents is during a formal period for public review. To get notified of open calls for review, see via e-mail, Atom/RSS feed, or Twitter from Get WAI News.

Participating in Community Groups

W3C Community Groups cover a variety of topics. Anyone can join Community Groups, after getting a free W3C account and signing the W3C Community Contributor License Agreement. Of the long list of Community Groups, here are some that are actively seeking contributors:

• ACT Rules CG
• ARIA and Assistive Technologies CG
• Cognitive Accessibility CG
• Immersive Captions CG
• Low Vision CG

Participating in Interest Groups

The WAI Interest Group (WAI IG) is for general discussion and feedback on all areas of WAI’s work. Most of the interaction within WAI IG is through the public mailing list.

Participating in Working Groups

Anyone can join a WAI Working Group public mailing list, or read the public list archives.

There are specific criteria for formally joining Working Groups, including requirements for participation and contribution. See the Working Group pages below to find what group best fits your interests and to get information on participation.

• EOWG — The Accessibility Education and Outreach Working Group develops awareness, training, and implementation resources supporting web accessibility. See Participating in EOWG.
• AG WG — The Accessibility Guidelines Working Group develops guidelines for web pages, web applications, and other web content. See Participating in AG WG.
• APA — The Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group reviews W3C’s specifications for accessibility support and develops technical support materials. See Participating in APA WG.
• ARIA — The Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group develops a suite of accessible rich internet applications (ARIA) resources, and accessible APIs and mappings. See Participating in ARIA WG.

Sponsoring WAI

WAI’s work is supported in part by sponsorship from industry, disability, and government organizations interested in contributing to WAI’s efforts to make the web more accessible. Please see the list of current sponsors and information on WAI sponsorship at Sponsoring WAI.

Promoting and Implementing Web Accessibility

Promoting Awareness

• Share links to the “Perspectives Videos” that show the impact of accessibility and the benefits for everyone in a variety of situations.
• Encourage people to take the Digital Accessibility Foundations - Free Online Course
• Cover web accessibility in presentations and training to web developers, designers, managers, and others. Use the curricula to develop courses.
• Look around the W3C WAI website to find other accessibility resources for specific roles that you want to share on social media, within your organization, and with others.

Implementing Guidelines

• Use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) documents to help make your website accessible.
• If you develop authoring tools—any software or service that people use to create or modify web content, including content management systems—implement the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG).
• If you develop web browsers, media players, assistive technologies, or other user agents—implement the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG).

Encouraging Accessibility

• Encourage authoring tools to meet ATAG by directly contacting vendors and requesting increased accessibility support in future versions, and by purchasing tools that provide the best support for accessibility.
• Encourage web browsers, media players, assistive technologies, and other user agents to meet UAAG.
• Encourage organizations to adopt an accessibility policy for their organization that defines their commitment to web accessibility.
• Encourage websites to be accessible, for example, provide feedback on inaccessible websites and inaccessible web products carefully; it is usually more productive to start with a positive encouraging tone, rather than a negative critical tone.