Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group
The mission of the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group (APA WG) is to ensure W3C specifications provide support for accessibility to people with disabilities. The group advances this mission through review of W3C specifications, development of technical support materials, collaboration with other Working Groups, and coordination of harmonized accessibility strategies within W3C.
Announcements
No announcements at the moment.
Current Work
The APA WG is engaged on the following work:
- Publications: The Working Group maintains a comprehensive list of publications and status, which include:
- Several Accessibility User Requirements guides for specific technologies;
- Framework for Accessible Specification of Technologies plus FAST checklist,
- Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA,
- Pronunciation technology to provide for proper pronunciation in HTML content when using text to speech (TTS) synthesis,
- Personalization technology to enable design of sites in a way that they can be personalized to the needs of each user allows more optimal accessibility.
- Specification reviews: input is solicited on the WAI Interest Group mailing list, tracked in the APA specification review wiki pagesand comments are copied to the public-apa mailing list.
- Community groups: the Working Group maintains a list of community groups to track.
The APA Project Plan details intended timeline and milestones for this work.
Horizontal Review
The APA Working Group performs accessibility horizontal review of other technologies under development by W3C. Documents reviewed from 2015 to present are shown in the Specification Review list. Active reviews under way are shown in the Accessibility Review Comment Tracker. The group also reviews charters of groups to check that deliverables and liaisons reflect accessibility needs.
To request review of a GitHub issue from the APA, add the "a11y-tracker" label to the issue. If the APA files an issue or agrees to comment on an issue, the label will be changed to "a11y-needs-resolution". To request review outside of a GitHub issue context, send email to group-apa-chairs@w3.org.
Task Forces
The APA WG uses task forces to focus work on specific projects. Task Forces are described on the related page.
How to Comment, Contribute, and Participate
The APA Working Group engages with stakeholders in a variety of ways. See the following resources for information on:
Meetings and Communication
The APA WG conducts its work using a variety of synchronous and asynchronous tools. The communication page provides details about:
- Teleconferences of the Working Group and its task forces (also see meeting minutes);
- Face to face meetings (also see face to face meeting pages);
- Email lists;
- apa source repository;
- Wiki;
- Web-Based Surveys (WBS);
- Issue Tracker;
- Bugzilla;
- apa source repository issue tracker.
These tools are used by participants of the Working Group. For ways non-participants can contribute, see how to contribute to the Working Group and file comments.
Meeting Minutes
Minutes from previous meetings are available.
Administrative Information
Work of the APA WG is in accordance with the W3C Process. APA work is funded in part by the WAI Core 2015 Project. The work of this group does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the funders.
The chairs of the APA WG, responsible for overall leadership and management, are Matthew Atkinson and Janina Sajka. The staff contact, responsible for W3C Process and general support, is Ruoxi (Roy) Ran. Administrative inquiries may be sent to group-apa-chairs@w3.org.
The Accessible Platform Architectures maintains the following operational resources:
W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent.