Add an accessibility self-review to TAG design reviews.

[jyasskin]

@matatk Is https://w3c.github.io/fast/checklist.html the right questionnaire to ask people to fill out? I think I'd like to wait to merge this until there's a markdown template for people to copy, like with https://github.com/w3c/security-questionnaire/blob/main/questionnaire.markdown. Then I also want to get some folks who propose HTML and CSS features to review that checklist to ensure that it's not too much of a burden to fill it out.

[nigelmegitt]

I would prefer not to do this at all. Instead, I think we should minimise dependencies between the horizontal reviews, and leave the accessibility review with the group that already owns it. I've noticed this before with privacy/security reviews, where there seems to be TAG review duplication.

Perhaps what TAG really wants is to make sure that the other HR reviews have been initiated before TAG begins on their review? That way TAG can go and look up the inputs to those other reviews.

My perspective here is that of a Chair of a WG that needs to request reviews from time to time, and wanting that process to be as efficient as possible - in my view this change reduces efficiency.

[martinthomson]

I don't think that the intent is to have the TAG review blocked on accessibility, but only to make it easy to find the different reviews. Still, I find @nigelmegitt's argument persuasive. The template is already unwieldy enough.

[jyasskin]

We're currently using the same intake forms for browser-driven reviews as WG-driven reviews, and maybe it makes sense to split them. For WGs, we should ask for a link to the issue that lists all the horizontal reviews, and omit any questions that the other groups would cover. For Chromium, until their process requires more wide review than just the TAG, we need to include the references to other topics to ensure they don't just get forgotten. If other browsers start requesting review before they ship pre-CR things, we should consider what intake form they need.

[nigelmegitt]

That makes sense @jyasskin. The only TAG-specific HR deliverable for a WG should be the explainer, which actually should be useful for all the HR groups. Tempting to start trying to adjust the HR process here, but it's not the right forum.

[matatk]

Quick update on work being done in TAG and APA here...

• TAG has a shortlist questionnaire (like i18n does) for accessibility review, and seeing if further review would be needed - but I and @jyasskin feel that this needs to be more user (spec author) friendly, so @ananya-ky on my team is making an HTML version of this to make it super easy to both fill in, and to get a GitHub issue in the spec's repo (important because the answers need to be owned, and visible - and it's easy to add the a11y-tracker label to issues in the spec's repo) out of the answers. We can share prototype with TAG now, and publicly in a week or so.

  The HTML idea (thanks @jyasskin) is heavily inspired by i18n's short review checklist but instead of having the spec author copy in and then complete the GitHub issue, the text of the GitHub issue comes directly from how the user filled in the form - so it will be even simpler to use.

• APA also has the longer FAST Checklist that is needed if more in-depth review is warranted, or at horizontal review time. We're aware it has shortcomings, and have had great feedback on it from @nigelmegitt and others. We're revamping it based on this feedback, and again @ananya-ky is working on it.

I also agree with both @nigelmegitt and @martinthomson that the process needs to be simple for requesters of reviews, and that hopefully these things in concert will achieve that.

My proposal would be that when we have the 'friendly' versions of the two questionnaires at MVP level we could point to them, from TAG's perspective, via this PR. I'm away for a week after today but I expect our proposed forms to be ready within a week or so.

[matatk]

P.S. Perhaps it might help to post this here too... I looked at the current HR process. Actually accessibility is the only area that has two totally separate questionnaires - though I agree that the TAG one is a good starting point for early reviews, and a good 'relay' for whether deeper review is needed.

Group	Short questionnaire	Short answers filed in	Full questionnaire	Full answers filed in	HR review request	HR review results filed in
Internationalization	https://w3c.github.io/i18n-drafts/techniques/shortchecklist	spec repo issue	https://www.w3.org/TR/international-specs/	(usually in spec repo)	https://github.com/w3c/i18n-request/issues/new/choose	spec repo issue(s)
Accessibility	https://github.com/w3ctag/accessibility-questionnaire	external repo for questionnaire answers	https://w3c.github.io/fast/checklist.html	(usually in spec repo)	https://github.com/w3c/a11y-request/issues/new/choose	spec repo issue(s)
Privacy	https://www.w3.org/TR/security-privacy-questionnaire/	(usually in spec repo)	NONE	N/A	https://github.com/w3cping/privacy-request/issues/new/choose	spec repo issue(s)
Security	https://www.w3.org/TR/security-privacy-questionnaire/	(usually in spec repo)	NONE	N/A	https://github.com/w3c/security-request/issues/new/choose	spec repo issue(s)

Updates:

• 2025-05-29: Include full Internationalization checklist.