We Need to Support Authors Better to Deliver Accessible Content
From ATAG 2.0 to Local AI & Automated WCAG-EM
Mike Gifford
FOSDEM 2026 | Collaboration and Content Management | Open Web Alliance
Welcome everyone. Thanks to the Collaboration and Content Management track for centering this conversation on authors, not just auditors.
The Definition of Insanity
The Cycle of Failure:
- We train authors → they leave → we retrain
- Authors are SMEs, not accessibility experts
- The CMS interface is the filter. If the filter allows garbage, we get garbage
Remediation costs more than prevention every single time. Reinforce the burn rate: every handoff and retrain cycle multiplies cost. Prevention is cheaper than cleanup.
The Missing Standard: ATAG 2.0
Part A: The Editor UI
The authoring interface itself must be accessible.
Part B: Support Accessible Content
The tool guides authors to produce accessible output.
Part B is the most ignored W3C standard. We wrote the checklist but never shipped the software because static rules could not cover dynamic context. Stress the historical gap: we treated ATAG Part B as aspirational because we lacked contextual engines.
The We4Authors Lesson
- Drupal, Joomla, Plone, Umbraco aligned on defaults like compulsory alt text
- Static code turned into Clippy: annoying, context-blind, brittle
- It could not tell a layout table from a data table
We hit the wall of what if/then statements can do. Call back to the pain of static linters: they either under-fire or over-fire. Authors tuned them out.
Move from Gatekeeping to Guiding.
Set the pivot: we are not scolding authors, we are giving them smart, contextual guidance.
The Moment of Authoring
Privacy-first AI pipeline:
- Draft stays inside the CMS boundary
- Inference happens via WebAssembly or a local service
- No drafts leak to OpenAI or other third parties
Local SLM stack:
- Bundled with the CMS for offline and regulated deployments
- Optimized prompts for authoring context (field, template, role)
- Deterministic fallbacks when the model cannot decide
Emphasize the procurement reality: government and enterprise cannot ship drafts to remote AI. Local SLMs are our compliance path and our open-source advantage.
Practical ATAG 3.0 Moves
- Contextual alt text: AI suggests descriptions using image analysis plus page context
- Plain language nudges: flag jargon and propose simpler synonyms to reduce cognitive load
- Structure hints: "You bolded this—did you mean H3?"
Goal: lower cognitive load, not replace authors. Reiterate: keep authors in control. AI proposes, humans confirm.
Compliance is Science (WCAG-EM)
ATAG is about writing, but WCAG-EM closes the loop on managing the site.
The worst step: WCAG-EM Step 3 — select a representative sample. Humans hate doing this.
Why are we manually listing URLs for an audit in 2026? Frame compliance as a repeatable experiment. Sampling is data science, not busywork.
The "Generate Sample" Button
The CMS already knows:
- Active templates and content types
- Traffic and engagement patterns
- Editorial ownership and workflow states
The feature: auto-generate the WCAG-EM sample and keep it current.
Turn the audit from a consulting contract into a dashboard widget. Highlight how automation de-risks audits: consistent sampling, faster retests, cheaper renewals.
The Open Web Alliance Mandate
- Join the W3C ATAG Community Group
- Contribute to the shared dataset for accessibility SLMs
- Ship a WCAG-EM module in your CMS
Challenge the room: we either build the open stack now or live under proprietary audit bots.
Resources
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