WAI

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to talk with you again regarding accessibility of the Web. My name is Judy Brewer,
and I direct the Web Accessibility Initiative ni (WAI) at the World Wide Web Consortium nii (W3C).

For the Web to work, computers need to be able to talk to each other across the Internet in the same computer languages - and W3C is where those languages are agreed upon. W3C is an
international standards body with over 300 member organizations, primarily web industry leaders. We are based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
the European Research Consortium on Informatics and Mathematics in France, and Keio University in Japan. W3C is directed by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of
the Web, and a strong believer in the Web for All. W3C has developed over one hundred technical standards and guidelines, ranging from HTML and XML, to
graphics, math, voice, rich media, mobile devices, web services, linked data, security, privacy, e-Government, internationalization, and more.

Among its other work, W3C hosts the Web Accessibility Initiative. WAI develops standards, guidelines and resources to make the Web accessible for people
with disabilities; ensures accessibility of W3C technologies; and develops educational resources to support web accessibility. WAI is supported in part
by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research at the US Department of Education; the European Commission; WAI Sponsors; and W3C Member
organizations. My comments do not necessarily represent those of WAI's funders.

Introduction

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) is a set of guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to make it possible to provide an enhanced user experience for people with disabilities when using internet applications with assistive technologies. ARIA is an extra set of tools developers can implement into their web applications to directly communicate information to assistive technologies.

Recently there are many technical descriptions on ARIA, this article aims to explain what it is in general terms, and give you an idea of how and when to use it.

The World Wide Web Consortium announced the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 to be the new official recommendation.

After long years of work, the new set of guidelines allows more applicability to current and future technologies. In addition, WCAG 2.0 with its new structure makes it easier to follow, and provides much more guidance.

The Mobile Web Best Practices Working Group and the WAI Education and Outreach Working Group invite you to comment on the following updated draft technical report published 3 July 2008:
* Relationship between Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Working Draft