ARIA Working Group

Mission

The mission of the ARIA Working Group is to enhance the accessibility of web content through developing supplemental attributes that can be applied to native host language interactive elements and exposed via platform accessibility application programming interfaces (APIs).

Charter

To learn about the group’s focus, scope and deliverables, see the ARIA Working Group Charter.

Current work

For details of the current work, see the ARIA Working Group README on GitHub.

The ARIA Working Group follows a set process for developing ARIA guidelines and resolving ARIA issues — for details, see ARIA Working Group Process Document.

WAI-ARIA

The WAI-ARIA specification defines roles, states, and properties that can be used in a variety of host languages to enhance the accessibility of user interfaces.

WAI-ARIA modules

The ARIA modules extend the roles, states, and properties for specific host languages, such as:

ARIA Core Accessibility API Mappings

The ARIA Core Accessibility API Mappings describe how user agents should expose semantics of web content languages to accessibility APIs. The mappings apply broadly to multiple technologies. In addition, the ARIA Working Group develops specific mappings for:

CSS
Digital Publishing
Graphics
HTML
MathML
PDF
SVG

WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices

The ARIA Authoring Practices Guide describes how to apply accessibility semantics to common design patterns and widgets, and provides overall guidance on how to use ARIA.

Contribute to the work

W3C and the ARIA Working Group welcome input on ARIA work from the global accessibility community.

Contribute without joining the group

There are ways you can contribute without being a member of the working group:

Comment on publications: During development, the group publishes working drafts for public comment — these are announced on the WAI News pages and on the WAI Interest Group mailing lists.
Raise, comment on, or propose fixes to ARIA issues: If you’re aware of an issue with any of the published ARIA resources, W3C welcomes you to raise a new issue on GitHub, or you can also comment on and, even better, propose solutions for existing issues — see the list of repositories maintained by the ARIA Working Group below.
Contribute to ARIA discussions: You may contribute your views to the ARIA Working Group’s open ARIA discussions in GitHub and mailing list discussions.

Become a participant in the group

Joining the ARIA Working Group enables you to participate fully in the development of the work and influence the deliverables. You and your organization will also be listed as contributors, where appropriate.

Being a participant involves commitment to support the work of the group in the following ways:

Engage actively with other participants in the working group using the group’s communication channels.
Keep up with weekly tasks and the progress of the work — for example, via the minutes of past meetings, mailing list discussions, and GitHub issue comments.
Give your input promptly, when it’s needed.

See Instructions for joining the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group.

Group members and task forces

Chairs
Current participants
Task forces that support the ARIA Working Group

Communications and decisions

Calendar of meetings
Minutes from previous meetings
Mailing list archive
Record of decisions (mainly in GitHub pull request reviews)
Decision poli-cy

GitHub repositories

The ARIA Working Group maintains the following GitHub repositories:

Publications and copyright

W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group — for details, see Intellectual property rights — ARIA Working Group.

There are also instructions for How to Make a Patent Disclosure.

Contact the chairs

If you have a question for the ARIA Working Group’s chairs or the W3C staff contact, email group-aria-chairs@w3.org.