Publishing ACT Rules on w3.org/WAI/

With the ACT Rules Format in candidate recommendation, the format should now be stable for us to start publishing some of the ACT Rules that have been in development in the ACT-Rules community group (previously called Auto-WCAG). Our hope is that ACT Rules that have gone through a community review, and have been implemented into multiple test tools and methodologies, will be considered for publication as part of the WCAG resources.

Proposed Places For Inclusion

For these rules, we would like to see the following additions / changes to WAI resources:

1. New pages, one for each rule
2. A new WCAG Test Rules page (similar to Techniques for WCAG https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Techniques/), showing a list of all WCAG test rules.
3. Links in Understanding WCAG documents, for rules that map to success criteria, similar to how techniques are linked from the understanding documents.
4. Links from WCAG Techniques, similar to how rules have links to rules in its "Background" section
5. Inclusion in the How to Meet WCAG 2 quickref, by adding a new section under each success criterion called "Test Rules"

Motivation

We believe that creating greater visibility for ACT Rules will have several benefits:

1. Encourage organisations to improve consistency between test methods and tools
2. Create transparency about WCAG interpretations in accessibility vendors
3. Helps organisations understand why results from different testers can be different
4. It helps developers understand how to interpret WCAG's technology agnostic language for specific technologies

Required Activities

Below are lists of activities that different groups would perform. Generally, rule writing and maintainance is done in a community group or other rule developing organisation. Validation and publication of rules will be handled by the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. Much of that work can be delegated to a task force, such as the ACT Task Force.

Rule Writer Activities

• Gather support for rule proposals
• Author rules once sufficient support is reached
• Review new rules and updates to rules for correctness
• Promote implementation of rules
• Collect implementation information about rules
• Submit rules with sufficient implementations for publication to AG
• Process public feedback of rules
• Process feedback of rules received by AG
• Update existing rules based on feedback

AG Activities

Rule support

• Provide a channel for developers of rules to ask questions around the interpretation of WCAG
• Confirm that questions are not already answered by existing Techniques and Understanding docs
• Notify AGWG Chairs about potentially useful questions requiring clarification in AGWG docs
• Track and help shepherd discussion on raised questions, and relay responses back to the sender

Rule submission

• Review submitted rules for completeness and conformance to the ACT Rules Format specification
• Confirm that the interpretation of WCAG in the rules is not inconsistent with existing AGWG docs
• Analyze relationship between submitted rules and existing Techniques and Understanding docs
• Convert the submitted rule in the AGWG style; stage/install it; and ensure all necessary cross-links
• Notify AGWG Chairs about rules that are potentially ready for AGWG publication approval review
• Track and help shepherd publication and approval review, and relay responses back to the sender

Rule maintenance

• Continuously document errata, bugs, and other issues reported on rules published by AGWG
• Convey identified issues back to the originating submitter, should that entity still exist / be active
• Regularly assess need for action (update rules, mark rules as superseded or obsolete, etc.)
• Notify AGWG Chairs about the need for changes to existing rules or to the status of existing rules
• Track and help shepherd the change process, and make the corresponding changes to the rules

Publication Approval

These activities should not be delegated to a task force.

• Decide on a release cadence for publishing rules
• Set up a CFC to approve publication of new rules, and updates to rules