W3C

The Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group has published XR Accessibility User Requirements (XAUR) as a Working Group Note. XR refers to hardware, applications, and techniques used for virtual reality or immersive environments (VR), augmented or mixed reality (AR), and other related technologies. XAUR introduces technical accessibility challenges, such as the need for multi-modal support, synchronization of input and output devices, and customization. It describes accessibility user needs and suggests requirements. XAUR is for designers and developers involved in creating immersive and augmented experiences. It’s also useful for anyone who wants to better understand accessibility in a range of immersive or augmented environments.

The Web Payments Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Secure Payment Confirmation (SPC). SPC helps to streamline authentication during a payment transaction. Leveraging Web Authentication, it is designed to scale authentication across merchants, to be used within a wide range of authentication protocols, and to produce cryptographic evidence that the user has confirmed transaction details.

The Immersive Web Working Group has published the following three First Public Working Drafts:

• WebXR Depth Sensing Module is a module extending the capabilities of WebXR Device API. It enables apps to obtain depth information computed by supported XR devices in order to provide more immersive experiences. The example use cases of depth sensing API include (but are not limited to) simulating physical interactions of virtual objects with the real world, occlusion, and non-visual applications that can make use of increased awareness of users’ environment.
• WebXR Hit Test Module describes a method for performing hit tests against real world geometry to be used with the WebXR Device API.
• WebXR DOM Overlays Module expands the WebXR Device API with a mechanism for showing interactive 2D web content during an immersive WebXR session. When the feature is enabled, the user agent will display the content of a single DOM element as a transparent-background 2D rectangle.

The CSS Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of CSS Nesting Module. This module introduces the ability to nest one style rule inside another, with the selector of the child rule relative to the selector of the parent rule. This increases the modularity and maintainability of CSS stylesheets.

The Accessible Rich Internet Applications Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of Digital Publishing WAI-ARIA Module 1.1. Enabling users of assistive technologies to find their way through web content requires embedding semantic metadata about web document structural divisions. This is particularly important for structural divisions of long-form documents and goes along with embedding semantic metadata about web-application widgets and behaviors for assistive technologies. This specification defines a set of WAI-ARIA roles specific to helping users of assistive technologies navigate through such long-form documents.

This document is part of the WAI-ARIA suite described in the WAI-ARIA Overview.

The Decentralized Identifier Working Group has just published two Working Group Notes:

• DID Method Rubric v1.0: The communities behind Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) bring together a diverse group of contributors who have decidedly different notions of exactly what “decentralization” means. Rather than attempting to resolve this potentially unresolvable question, we propose a rubric — a scoring guide used to evaluate performance, a product, or a project — that teaches how to evaluate a given DID Method according to one’s own requirements.
• DID Implementation Guide v1.0: This document provides guidance to DID method developers, related to serialization, cryptographic primitive selection, governance, and interoperability.

The Web Editing Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of VirtualKeyboard API. The VirtualKeyboard API provides authors with greater control over the visibility of the virtual keyboard (VK), and greater ability to adapt the layout of web pages when VK visibility changes.

We are proud to welcome Snake Nation into our Membership, as part of our work with Grant for the Web on Inclusion Grants to underwrite new W3C memberships in lower income countries. These memberships aim to support and promote diversity, inclusion, and equity in the Web Monetization ecosystem and in the broader web standards movement. Snake Nation whose social media platform offers Web monetization and greater access to the web for diverse voices, joins W3C as the first of these new W3C Members. Please, read our press release.