atag

ATAG stands for Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines. It is a set of guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to support the creation of accessible web content and the accessibility of the tools used to create that content.

The guidelines address two broad objectives: first, to ensure that authoring tools enable authors to produce content that conforms to accessibility standards; and second, to ensure that the tools themselves are accessible to people with disabilities so that authors can use them effectively.

ATAG is designed for a range of authoring environments, including content management systems, word processors, HTML editors, and other software that generates web content. The guidelines cover aspects such as the tool's user interface, the support for accessibility metadata and semantics, and mechanisms to validate and repair accessibility of produced content.

ATAG is part of the WAI program and is intended to complement the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). While WCAG focuses on the accessibility of content, ATAG concentrates on the creation process and the accessibility of the authoring tools used to produce content.

The current version, ATAG 2.0, was published as a W3C Recommendation in 2008. It has been used as a benchmark in software development and procurement to promote accessible authoring tools and content, and is maintained under the WAI umbrella.