W3C/WAI Web Accessibility Evaluation and Testing Activities

Status: on-going development.

Resources:

• Techniques for WCAG 2.0
• Commenting on WCAG 2.0
• Submitting New Techniques

The WCAG Working Group continues to develop techniques for WCAG 2.0, that are document ways of meeting (or failing) the WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria. The group welcomes comments on existing techniques as well as contribution of new techniques. The group also invites the development of techniques outside W3C/WAI, for example by individual regional and language communities and by web technology vendors.

Status: on-going development.

Resources:

• WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology Task Force (Eval TF)
• WAI-ACT Project

WCAG 2.0 Evaluation Methodology Task Force (Eval TF) is a sub-group of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) and Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG), and is developing a methodology to help apply WCAG 2.0 on entire websites consistently. The group welcomes input and feedback on current drafts, and volunteers to contribute to the development of this methodology.

Status: on-going development.

Resources:

• W3C Conformance Test Framework
• Web Testing Interest Group

Several W3C/WAI Working Groups are looking into developing test suites for their specifications using the W3C Conformance Test Framework. This includes test suites for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0, User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) 2.0, Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0. The corresponding working groups welcome contribution of test suites and volunteers to contribute to the development of test suites.

Status: early requirements analysis.

Resources:

• Requirements for Accessibility Support Database
• WAI-ACT Project (IST 287725)

W3C/WAI is exploring the use of crowd-sourcing approaches to establish and maintain a repository of information on the support for accessibility features (WCAG 2.0 techniques) in different web browsers and assistive technologies. Comments and feedback on the current draft requirements are welcome.

Note: This is related to previous work on a WCAG 2.0 Test Samples, that has been temporarily discontinued.

Status: planned for future development.

Resources:

• [Outdated] Techniques For Accessibility Evaluation And Repair Tools (AERT)
• WAI-ACT Project (IST 287725)

While this resource has been largely superseded by the Techniques for WCAG 2.0, an update should provide specific guidance for web accessibility evaluation tool developers, to help create a new generation of automated and semi-automated tools that better support the WCAG 2.0 Techniques and the Evaluation Methodology for WCAG 2.0.

Status: planned for future updates.

WAI is planning to develop or extend several educational resources around the technical resources described elsewhere on this page, to support web accessibility evaluation. In particular, this includes:

• Guide for Evaluators - to provide a usable interface as an entry-point for website evaluators; it could be based on or combined with the WCAG 2.0 Quick Reference interface.
• Preliminary Evaluation - to provide advice on coarse assessment (as opposed to full conformance) evaluation of accrssibility; An outdatd version of this resource exists: Preliminary Review of Web Sites for Accessibility.
• Evaluation Tools List - to update and revamp the List of Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools and update the guidance on Selecting Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools accordingly.
• Guidance on Specific Contexts - to provide advice on website evaluation in specific contexts, such as for large-scale monitoring, surveying, and aggregation of results. An outdated version of this resource exists: Evaluation Approaches for Specific Contexts.
• Testing with Users - to provide advice on complementary testing with users by experts. A basic version of this resource exists: Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility; it may need some updating to align with other resources on evaluation.
• Reporting Templates - to provide templates for reporting web accessibility evaluation results, possibly including manchine-readable reports such as using the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). An outdated version of this resource exists: Template for Accessibility Evaluation Reports; it needs some work to update from its current state to support WCAG 2.0 Conformance Statements.