Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Working Group of W3C has finalized several documents.

The Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group of W3C has finalized following documents:

• Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.1
• Core Accessibility API Mappings 1.1
• Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.0
• Digital Publishing Accessibility API Mappings 1.0
• WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1 is a Working Group Note

Below is an excerpt of the announcement from ARIA working group:

The Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA specifications were co-developed with the Digital Publishing Interest Group, which has since become the Publishing Working Group.

WAI-ARIA 1.1 adds a variety of new features that were identified as needs since WAI-ARIA 1.0 was completed. These include a static table model to complement the dynamic grid model provided in WAI-ARIA 1.0, supporting news feeds and modal dialog boxes, better supporting labeling and extended descriptions, allowing authors to indicate keyboard shortcuts and custom role types, and refining the owned roles model and set of properties for many ARIA features. Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Roles takes this further to provide roles for types of content that often appears in digital publications. Accessibility API Mappings describe how these features should be mapped to the features of Accessibility APIs specific to various platforms that user use to access web content.

WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 1.1 has undergone major enhancements to reflect this work and provide web content authors with practical guidance about how to use WAI-ARIA in web content, including steps they need to take beyond WAI-ARIA itself to provide full accessibility support. A major part of the document is a set of design patterns for various types of widgets that explain how to create the widget using ARIA features and recommended keyboard interaction to achieve a familiar and predictable user experience; these design patterns are complemented by a comprehensive set of examples with working code that demonstrate the design pattern in action and provide authors a starting point for coding their own versions. The document provides comprehensive guidance about how to make content accessible to keyboard users, and also provides information about when *not* to use WAI-ARIA in preference to native features. Further information about this is available in the blog post:
https://www.w3.org/blog/2017/12/wai-aria-authoring-practices-note

Following the completion of WAI-ARIA 1.1, the Working Group will begin work on WAI-ARIA 1.2, which will focus on defining features that correspond to existing HTML 5 features. This reflects convergence of an accessibility taxonomy for the web across various technologies and will support future scripting and automation of accessibility features. More information about the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group is available from its home page:
https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/

There has been great developments in th4e accessibility space during 2017. Way to go!