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Re: W3C Guidelines

for

From: Shadi Abou-Zahra
Date: Jan 29, 2010 12:54AM

Hi Geof,

You may also be interested in an introductory resource on "How WAI
Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process":
- <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/w3c-process.php>;

The full details on W3C processes and its involvement with the web
community are available in the "W3C Process Document":
- <http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/>;

Note that not only WCAG but all W3C technical specifications are
developed with opportunity for community input. Most of the W3C/WAI
educational resources are developed by multi-stakeholder input too.

Best,
Shadi


John Foliot wrote:
> Geof Collis wrote:
>> Hi All
>>
>> I'm having a bit of a debate where someone says that the members of
>> the W3c at the time wrote the guidelines for WCAG 1.0 and I'm
>> wondering if this is true. I thought that they got input from the web
>> community and based them on their feedback. Can anyone shed some
>> light on the process?
>
> Both statements are actually correct - the WCAG 1 Guidelines were written
> by members of the WAI within W3C, based upon feedback and input from
> affected community members (some of the early work however was initiated
> at the Trace Center via Gregg Vanderheiden). This is actually how most
> W3C Recommendations are developed, but back in 1997 - 1999 there were
> fewer voices involved in the discussions. (It's interesting to note some
> of those early voices, including Gregg Vanderheiden [Trace], TV Raman [now
> at Google], Mike Paciello, Phill Jenkins [IBM], Jon Gunderson
> [Urbana-Champaign], and Chuck Letourneau [one of the original Co-Chairs,
> and my mentor in the early days].
>
> Going back over the W3C email archives of the time will show the relative
> progress path that WCAG 1 took, and actually makes for interesting reading
> if you like history. The archives can be found at:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/
>
> Also related to that list was the WAI Interest Group, whos archive can be
> found at:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/
>
> Cheers!
>
> JF
>