Better Tooling with ACT Rules

Despite widespread adoption of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as the standard for web and digital accessibility, there are sometimes still differences in interpretation. This includes differences among automated testing tools and manual evaluation methodologies. This inconsistency creates confusion, dispute, and overall delay to uniform adoption and implementation of accessibility requirements.

To address this issue, W3C launched work on the Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT), to facilitate transparency and common understanding among different parties. This includes developers of tools and methodologies, users of these resources, and owners of quality assurance processes. They all benefit from a common understanding of the requirements, and documentation of the testing procedures.

This presentation introduces the ACT Rules Format specification from W3C and show how it facilitates the development of a common repository of ACT Rules. The presentation will also explain how different tools and methodologies are implementing these ACT Rules to improve transparency and the accuracy, and how you can get involved in developing and reviewing ACT Rules in an open community process.