W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) invites researchers, professionals, and users with disabilities to participate in their online symposium on Accessible Way-Finding using Web Technologies, scheduled for December 3, 2014. Accompanying the invitation is a call for papers encouraging contributors to examine issues, technology, applications, and solutions that will assist people with disabilities when navigating the web and the world.

July 2014 – The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative published a new document to help developers assess the accessibility of websites in addition to web and mobile applications. Titled Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM), the document provides a methodology developers can use to test websites and apps for conformance to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.  In general, WCAG 2.0 focuses on individual web pages.

February 2014 — The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Protocols and Formats Working Group published proposed recommendations regarding Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA).  The document outlines “ways to make web content, particularly web applications, more accessible to people with disabilities.” Complementing the current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, the proposed recommendations provide developers with guidelines to ensure that dynamic content or interfaces developed with Ajax, HTML or JavaScript, are accessible for people with disabilities and operabl