About W3C WAI

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

The World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) commitment to lead the web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) is an initiative of the W3C.

WAI develops its work through W3C’s consensus-based process, involving different stakeholders in web accessibility. These include industry, disability organizations, government, accessibility research organizations, and more.

WAI, in partnership with organizations around the world, pursues accessibility of the web through these primary activities:

• ensuring that W3C standards support accessibility
• developing accessibility guidelines for web content and applications, browsers, and authoring tools
• developing resources to improve web accessibility evaluation processes and tools
• supporting education and outreach on web accessibility
• coordinating with research and development that may impact future accessibility of the web
• promoting harmonized international uptake of web accessibility standards

Learn more about How WAI Develops Accessibility Standards through the W3C Process: Milestones and Opportunities to Contribute.

WAI Groups

WAI includes the following Working Groups and Interest Group:

• Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AG WG) (formerly the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group)
• Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group
• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group
• Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG)
• WAI Interest Group (WAI IG)

Within the Working Groups, there are also Task Forces.

Learn more about Participating in WAI.

WAI News

New WAI publications, draft documents for review, and other WAI announcements are listed on the News page.

You can subscribe to get news announcements via e-mail, Atom/RSS feed, or Twitter from Get WAI News.

Current Work

Current work is introduced in What We’re Working On - Accessibility Activities and Publications.

WAI Staff

• Shawn Lawton Henry leads accessibility communication, education, and WAI’s collaborative strategic planning.
• Kevin White leads technical accessibility work, including oversight of accessibility Working Groups.
• Roy Ruoxi Ran supports accessibility Working Groups and accessibility in China.
• Daniel Montalvo supports accessibility Working Groups and standards harmonization in Europe.

If you don’t know who to contact, or to reach all WAI staff, you can e-mail wai@w3.org