How WAI Develops Accessibility Standards through the W3C Process:
Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute

W3C standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops the standards for the web. WAI is part of W3C and follows the W3C Process for developing web standards.

W3C’s web standards are called ‘W3C Recommendations’. WAI has developed several W3C Recommendations, including:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, see WCAG Overview
• Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines, see ATAG Overview
• User Agent Accessibility Guidelines, see UAAG Overview
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications, see WAI-ARIA Overview

[WAI Accessibility Guidelines] that are [W3C Recommendations] are [Web Standards]

Milestones

Editor’s Drafts have no official standing and do not necessarily represent Working Group consensus; that is, the draft might include proposals that the Working Group has not agreed on.

The milestones that a W3C ‘technical report’ goes through on its way to becoming a W3C Recommendation are listed below.

1. Working Draft: Working Drafts are published and announced specifically to ask for review and input from the community. Often there are issues that a Working Group would particularly like input on. Usually multiple Working Drafts of a technical report are published.
2. Wide Review Working Draft: When a Working Group believes it has addressed all comments and technical requirements, it provides the complete document for community review and announces that it is ready for wide review.
3. Candidate Recommendation: The main purpose of Candidate Recommendation is to ensure that the technical report can be implemented. W3C encourages developers to use the technical report in their projects. The technical report is stable at this stage; however, it may change based on implementation experience.