DRAFT Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group Charter

The mission of the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group is to enhance the accessibility of web content through the development of supplemental attributes, including roles, states, and other properties, that can be applied to native host language elements and exposed via platform accessibility APIs.

Join the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group.

This proposed charter is available on GitHub. Feel free to raise issues.

Charter Status See the group status page and detailed change history.
Start date [dd monthname yyyy] (date of the "Call for Participation", when the charter is approved)
End date [dd monthname yyyy] (Start date + 2 years)
Chairs
  • James Nurthen (Evinced Inc.)
  • Valerie Young (Igalia)
Team Contacts Daniel Montalvo (0.1 FTE)
Meeting Schedule Teleconferences: topic-specific calls may be held or something else
Face-to-face: we will meet during the W3C's annual Technical Plenary week; additional face-to-face meetings may be scheduled by consent of the participants, usually no more than 3 per year.
See also this group calendar

Motivation and Background

The Accessible Rich Internet Application suite has consistently provided mechanisms to make rich internet applications and other complex web user interfaces accessible to people with disabilities.

The suite consists of:

The Working Group plans to continue developing these technical specifications to provide guidance for:

Scope

Out of Scope

The following features are out of scope, and will not be addressed by this Working group:

  • Technologies for which corresponding Accessibility API Mappings do not need to be defined

Deliverables

Updated document status is available on the group publication status page.

Draft state indicates the state of the deliverable at the time of the charter approval. Choose one: Expected completion indicates when the deliverable is projected to become a Recommendation, or otherwise reach a stable state The Working Group intends to publish the latest state of their work as Candidate Recommendation (with Snapshots) and does not intend to advance their documents to Recommendation.

Normative Specifications

The Working Group will deliver the following W3C normative specifications:

Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.2

This document describes how user agents determine the names and descriptions of accessible objects from web content languages. This information is in turn exposed through accessibility APIs so that assistive technologies can identify these objects and present their names or descriptions to users. Documenting the algorithm through which names and descriptions are to be determined promotes interoperable exposure of these properties among different accessibility APIs and helps to ensure that this information appears in a manner consistent with author intent.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-05-29

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2019/WD-accname-1.2-20190711/
Exclusion period began on 2019-07-11 and ended on 2019-12-08.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2018/11/aria-charter.html

AT Driver

The AT-driver specification defines a protocol for introspection and remote control of assistive technology software.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: Q4 2028

Per 5.2.6, for every Recommendation Track deliverable that continues work on a Working Draft (WD) published under any other Charter (including a predecessor group of the same name), for which there is an existing Exclusion Draft:

Adopted Draft: The title, stable URL, and publication date of the Adopted Draft which will serve to continue the work on the deliverable. If the draft is not a continuation of an existing draft (such as renaming the new draft by using a new version number), the Adopted Draft field must not used (as well as "Exclusion Draft" and "Exclusion Draft Charter" below) (see also Council recommendation and FAQ #41). If the spec is adopted from a Community Group, this may be a good time to check that IPR commitments are in place.

Exclusion Draft: The title, stable URL, and publication date of the most recent Exclusion Draft. Exclusion period began; Exclusion period ended. (this charter assistant helps in producing the list.)

Exclusion Draft Charter: The stable URL of the Working Group charter under which the most recent Exclusion Draft was published.

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.3

Accessibility of web content requires semantic information about widgets, structures, and behaviors, in order to allow assistive technologies to convey appropriate information to persons with disabilities. This specification provides an ontology of roles, states, and properties that define accessible user interface elements and can be used to improve the accessibility and interoperability of web content and applications. These semantics are designed to allow an author to properly convey user interface behaviors and structural information to assistive technologies in document-level markup. This version adds features new since WAI-ARIA 1.1 [wai-aria-1.1] to improve interoperability with assistive technologies to form a more consistent accessibility model for [HTML] and [SVG2]. This specification complements both [HTML] and [SVG2].

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-06-04

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/WD-wai-aria-1.3-20240123/
Exclusion period began on 2024-01-23 and ended on 2024-06-21.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2
This document describes how user agents should expose semantics of web content languages to accessibility APIs. This helps users with disabilities to obtain and interact with information using assistive technologies. Documenting these mappings promotes interoperable exposure of roles, states, properties, and events implemented by accessibility APIs and helps to ensure that this information appears in a manner consistent with author intent.

Draft state:

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-07-02

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2024/CR-core-aam-1.2-20241121/
Exclusion period began on 2024-11-21 and ended on 2025-01-20.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/aria-charter

CSS Accessibility API Mappings

CSS Accessibility API Mappings (CSS-AAM) defines how user agents map CSS [CSS] pseudo-elements and properties to platform accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs). It leverages and extends the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2 and the Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.2 for use with the CSS language. Documenting these mappings promotes interoperable exposure of roles, states, properties, and events implemented by accessibility APIs and helps to ensure that this information appears in a manner consistent with author intent.

HTML Accessibility API Mappings 1.0

HTML Accessibility API Mappings (HTML-AAM) defines how user agents map HTML [HTML] elements and attributes to platform accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs). It leverages and extends the Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.2 and the Accessible Name and Description Computation 1.1 for use with the HTML host language. Documenting these mappings promotes interoperable exposure of roles, states, properties, and events implemented by accessibility APIs and helps to ensure that this information appears in a manner consistent with author intent.

The HTML-AAM is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-07-10

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-html-aam-1.0-20150407/
Exclusion period began on 2015-04-09 and ended on 2015-09-06.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: https://www.w3.org/2013/09/html-charter

ARIA in HTML
@@@

Tentative Deliverables

Depending on the incubation progress, interest from multiple implementers, and the consensus of the Group participants, the Working Group may adopt the following documents as Rec-track specifications:

Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings
@@@
Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings
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Graphics Accessibility API Mappings
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Graphics Accessibility API Mappings
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SVG Accessibility API Mappings

Describes how user agents map SVG markup to platform accessibility APIs. When user agents support this specification, SVG authors can create accessible rich internet applications, including charts, graphs, and other drawings.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-05-29

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-svg-aam-1.0-20150226/
Exclusion period began on 2015-02-26 and ended on 2015-07-26.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/charter201006

MathML Accessibility API Mappings

Describes how user agents map MathML markup to platform accessibility APIs. When user agents support this specification, MathML authors can create accessible rich internet applications, including charts, graphs, and other drawings.

Draft state: Working Draft

Expected completion: [Q1–4 YYYY]

Latest publication: 2026-05-29

Exclusion Draft: https://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-mathml-aam-1.0-20150226/
Exclusion period began on 2015-02-26 and ended on 2015-07-26.

Exclusion Draft Charter: Produced under Working Group Charter: http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/charter201006

Other Deliverables

Other non-normative documents may be created such as:

  • Use case and requirement documents;
  • Test suite and implementation report for the specification;
  • Primer or Best Practice documents to support web developers when designing applications.

Timeline

Put here a timeline view of all deliverables.

  • Month YYYY: First teleconference
  • Month YYYY: First face-to-face meeting
  • Month YYYY: Requirements and Use Cases for FooML
  • Month YYYY: FPWD for FooML
  • Month YYYY: Requirements and Use Cases for BarML
  • Month YYYY: FPWD FooML Primer

Success Criteria

Remove this clause if the Group does not intend to move to REC: In order to advance beyond Candidate Recommendation, each normative specification is expected to have at least two independent interoperable implementations of every feature defined in the specification, where interoperability can be verified by passing open test suites. In order to advance beyond Candidate Recommendation, each normative specification must have an open test suite of every feature defined in the specification.

There should be testing plans for each specification, starting from the earliest drafts.

To promote interoperability, all changes made to specifications in Candidate Recommendation or to features that have deployed implementations should have tests. Testing efforts should be conducted via the Web Platform Tests project.

Each specification should contain separate sections detailing all known security and privacy implications for implementers, Web authors, and users.

This group is expected to be guided by the following documents:

Consider adding this clause if the Group does not intend to move to REC: All new features should have expressions of interest from at least two potential implementors before being incorporated in the specification.

Coordination

For all specifications, this Working Group will seek horizontal review for accessibility, internationalization, privacy, and security with the relevant Working and Interest Groups, and with the TAG. Invitation for review must be issued during each major standards-track document transition, including FPWD. The Working Group is encouraged to engage collaboratively with the horizontal review groups throughout development of each specification. The Working Group is advised to seek a review at least 3 months before first entering CR and is encouraged to proactively notify the horizontal review groups when major changes occur in a specification following a review.

Additional technical coordination with the following Groups will be made, per the W3C Process Document:

In addition to the above catch-all reference to horizontal review which includes accessibility review, please check with chairs and staff contacts of the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group to determine if an additional liaison statement with more specific information about concrete review issues is needed in the list below.

W3C Groups

Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
Work on HTML 5 and ARIA Techniques for WCAG 2.2.
Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group
Collaborate on overall accessibility architectural aspects of ARIA.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Working Group
Coordinate media queries support for context awareness. Provide requirements for future WAI-ARIA support. Coordinate on general CSS accessibility topics. Include CSS-AAM requirements in the hTML-AAM specification.
Publishing Maintenance Working Group
Coordinate development of digital publishing roles and EPUB Accessibility.
Internationalization Working Group
Coordinate how to address accessibility and internationalization in W3C specs.
Technical Architecture Group
Confirm the ARIA relationship to various host languages is interoperable and forwards-compatible.
Privacy Working Group
Identify and resolve privacy implications of features of the technology that capture user environment information, particularly specific assistive technology being used, in order to customize the user experience.
SVG Working Group
Coordinate on graphics role module and SVG Accessibility API Mappings.

External Organizations

DAISY Consortium
Coordinate on publishing and math accessibility API mappings.
Coordinate on features that impact e-learning and testing.
WHATWG
Coordinating on integration of ARIA in HTML and Web Components.

Participation

To be successful, this Working Group is expected to have 6 or more active participants for its duration, including representatives from the key implementors of this specification, and active Editors and Test Leads for each specification. The Chairs, specification Editors, and Test Leads are expected to contribute half of a working day per week towards the Working Group. There is no minimum requirement for other Participants.

The group encourages questions, comments and issues on its public mailing lists and document repositories, as described in Communication. The group also welcomes non-participants to make technical contributions for ongoing work, provided they agree to the terms of the W3C Patent Policy.

The Chairs should periodically look through the non-W3C-Member contributors to the Working Group or the [name of an associated Community Group, if any] and consider whether each one should be invited to participate as an Invited Expert. If a non-W3C-Member contributor would like to participate in meetings, they are encouraged to apply to be an Invited Expert.

Participants in the group are required (by the W3C Process) to follow the W3C Code of Conduct.

Communication

Technical discussions for this Working Group are conducted in public: the meeting minutes from teleconference and face-to-face meetings will be archived for public review, and technical discussions and issue tracking will be conducted in a manner that can be both read and written to by the general public. Working Drafts and Editor's Drafts of specifications will be developed in public repositories and may permit direct public contribution requests. The meetings themselves are not open to public participation, however.

Information about the group (including details about deliverables, issues, actions, status, participants, and meetings) will be available from the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group home page.

Most Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group teleconferences will focus on discussion of particular specifications, and will be conducted on an as-needed basis.

This group primarily conducts its technical work pick one, or both, as appropriate: on the public mailing list public-aria@w3.org (archive) or on GitHub issues. The public is invited to review, discuss and contribute to this work.

The group may use a Member-only mailing list for administrative purposes and, at the discretion of the Chairs and members of the group, for member-only discussions in special cases when a participant requests such a discussion.

Decision Policy

This group will seek to make decisions through consensus and due process, per the W3C Process Document (section 5.2.1, Consensus). Typically, an editor or other participant makes an initial proposal, which is then refined in discussion with members of the group and other reviewers, and consensus emerges with little formal voting being required.

However, if a decision is necessary for timely progress and consensus is not achieved after careful consideration of the range of views presented, the Chairs may call for a group vote and record a decision along with any objections.

To afford asynchronous decisions and organizational deliberation, any resolution (including publication decisions) taken in a face-to-face meeting or teleconference will be considered provisional. A call for consensus (CfC) will be issued for all resolutions (for example, via email, GitHub issue or web-based survey), with a response period from four working days to one week, depending on the chair's evaluation of the group consensus on the issue. If no objections are raised by the end of the response period, the resolution will be considered to have consensus as a resolution of the Working Group.

All decisions made by the group should be considered resolved unless and until new information becomes available or unless reopened at the discretion of the Chairs.

This charter is written in accordance with the W3C Process Document (Section 5.2.3, Deciding by Vote) and includes no voting procedures beyond what the Process Document requires.

Patent Policy

This Working Group operates under the W3C Patent Policy (Version of 15 May 2025). To promote the widest adoption of Web standards, W3C seeks to issue Web specifications that can be implemented, according to this policy, on a Royalty-Free basis. For more information about disclosure obligations for this group, please see the licensing information.

Licensing

This Working Group will use the W3C Software and Document license for all its deliverables.

About this Charter

This charter has been created according to section 3.4 of the Process Document. In the event of a conflict between this document or the provisions of any charter and the W3C Process, the W3C Process shall take precedence.

Charter History

Note:Display this table and update it when appropriate. Requirements for charter extension history are documented in the Charter Guidebook (section 4).

The following table lists details of all changes from the initial charter, per the W3C Process Document (section 4.3, Advisory Committee Review of a Charter):

Charter Period Start Date End Date Changes
Initial Charter 22 October 2015 31 July 2018 none
Charter Extension 6 September 2018 31 October 2018 none
Rechartered 8 November 2018 31 October 2021
  • Clarified mission to focus exclusively on WAI-ARIA and Accessibility API Mappings (AAMs);
  • Clarified dependency on other groups for several ARIA modules;
  • Updated Success Criteria to describe successful testing procedure for ARIA and AAMs;
  • Removed User Context as a deliverable; the evolution of it, Personalization Semantics; is being transferred to the APA Working Group;
  • Produced annual dot-release publications of ARIA and supporting specifications beginning Q4 2019, with features prioritized according to the roadmap;
  • Adopted a concrete workflow for feature acceptance to add predictability to timelines;
  • Clarified participation and communication procedures;
  • Added licensing section to specify the W3C Document license for Recommendation-track deliverables and the W3C Software and Document license for others;
  • Staff effort increased from .25 FTE to .4 FTE to provide additional support for project management, inter-group coordination on related ARIA specifications, and publication.
Charter Extension 19 November 2021 31 January 2022 none
Rechartered 7 February 2022 31 January 2024 Changes from the previous charter (diff from previous charter):
  • Switch to Evergreen for certain specs.
New co-chair 13 April 2022 Valerie Young appointed as co-chair, replacing Joanmarie Diggs who stepped down in September 2021.
Charter extension 18 December 2023 31 July 2024
Charter Extension 1 August 2024 31 December 2024
Rechartered 12 December 2024 1 January 2027
  • All specifications marked as "Living Recommendations", except for Graphics-ARIA and Graphics-AAM, but all will be published at least once to REC during the new Charter period
  • Added PDF-AAM to the list of deliverables
  • Marked SVG-AAM as a joint deliverable with the SVG Working Group
  • Clarified scope for HTML-ARIA

Change log

Changes to this document are documented in this section.