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<div id="Contents">

<h1>Quality Assurance Activity Statement</h1>

<div class="firstelement">
<p>The W3C Quality Assurance Activity has completed its work, part of which
was to engage in a closer dialog with those who are making the Web a reality, the <strong>Web community</strong>. Its achievements included helping W3C groups
learn the value of test suites in specification development. The Activity
has evolved into the Q&amp;A Weblog, and spawned <a href="#future">new projects</a>.</p>

<p>The mission of the QA Activity was fourfold:</p>

<ul id="mission">
    <li>improve the quality of W3C specifications, through guidelines and reviews of specifications at critical stages of their development. </li>
    <li>promote wide deployment and proper implementation of these specifications through articles, tutorials and validation services. </li>
    <li>communicate the value of test suites and helps Working Groups produce quality test suites. </li>
    <li>design effective processes that, if followed, will help groups achieve these goals.</li>
</ul>
</div>

<h2 id="previous">QA Activity Summary from 2001 to 2007</h2>

<p>In 2000, W3C began discussions on how to improve the quality of its
specifications and the challenges associated with doing so. It became
clear from these discussions that the culture of W3C groups would have
to evolve in the direction of more support for specifications in the
form of test materials, use cases, and other tools to improve quality.
In particular, one of the challenges faced by the QA Activity was to
be able to make a convincing case that investing up front (in test
cases, for example) pays off in terms of successful interoperability
and deployment. One conclusion by observation is that groups have
agreed that the investment in test cases, for
example, is well worth it.</p>

<p>A <a href="http://www.w3.org/2001/01/qa-ws/" title="Workshop on Quality Assurance at W3C">successful Workshop</a>,  hosted by <a href="http://www.nist.gov/" title="National Institute of Standards and Technology">NIST</a>, in January 2001 led to the creation of the Quality Assurance Activity and
two groups: the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/">Quality Assurance Working Group</a> and the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/IG/">Quality Assurance Interest Group</a>.</p>

<p>The <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/">Quality Assurance Working Group</a> published its work in August 2005. W3C Working Groups are now using a framework to achieve quality in the form of these technical reports:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="/TR/qaframe-spec/">QA Framework: Specification Guidelines</a>, W3C Recommendation</li>
<li><a href="/TR/qa-handbook/">The QA Handbook</a>, Working Group Note</li>
<li><a href="/TR/spec-variability/">Variability in Specifications</a>, Working Group Note</li>
<li><a href="/TR/test-metadata/">Test Metadata</a>, Working Group Note</li>
</ul>

<p>The remainder of this Activity Statement puts these resources in
context and explains the suite of resources created as part of the QA
Activity to <strong>foster a culture of quality inside
W3C</strong>.</p>

<h3 id="reviews">Specifications and Quality</h3>

<p>To give a general orientation to the whole of the QA Framework, the  QA Working Group created a  <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/WG/qaframe-primer">Primer &amp; User Scenarios</a>. The guide helps group Chairs understand the goals of the QA Technical Reports
and how to reach them when starting up a Working Group.
The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/qa-handbook/">QA Handbook</a> complements
the guide by providing more in-depth guidance for planning, committing and staffing.</p>

<p>Technical specifications are W3C's main product. Though there are
many ways to design a technology, the QA Activity was able to work
with diverse groups to understand their needs and to
articulate common themes to help address frequently asked questions.
The <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-spec/">QA Specification Guidelines</a> that resulted from these discussions is a step by step guide for writing  specifications. The guidelines explain how to construct a specification in
a way that promotes deployment, including issues of writing testable
assertions, and how document organization helps usability. Each
guideline is accompanied by techniques to help speed up the development.  <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/spec-variability">Variability in Specifications</a> addresses some topics such as
complexity and conformance variability in more detail.</p>


    <p>Finally, there is no good technology development without test cases. Each Working Group may have its own approach to developing test cases depending on their resources, constraints and the type of technology itself, but all these share the same basic concepts, described in <a href="http://www.w3.org/TR/test-metadata">Test Metadata</a>. A <a href="/QA/WG/2005/01/test-faq">Test Development FAQ</a> provides answers to questions about test suite development.</p>

    <p class="highlights">The Quality Assurance Framework became part of the life of W3C. It is an ongoing effort. W3C WGs have integrated this new mindset as part of Web technologies design.</p>


<h3 id="sysweb">Tools</h3>

<p>From the start, participants of the QA Activity recognized the importance of tools as vectors of the quality message. Besides pushing for more and better testing of the implementations of W3C specifications, the QA Interest Group and Staff adopted a number of W3C tools and services, including:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://validator.w3.org/" title="The W3C Markup Validation Service">W3C Markup Validator</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/" title="The W3C CSS Validation Service">CSS Validator</a></li>
<li><a href="http://validator.w3.org/checklink" title="W3C Link Checker">Link Checker</a></li>
</ul>

<p>The QA Activity also helped in the maintenance of the <a
href="http://www.w3.org/RDF/Validator/" title="W3C RDF Validation
Service">RDF Validator</a> and other tools.</p>

<p>In parallel with the maintenance and development of these existing tools, the QA Activity was behind the creation of new tools: the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/LogValidator/" title="W3C Log Validator">Log Validator</a>, as an application of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/2003/03/web-kit" title="Web Standards Switch - QA @ W3C">step-by-step Web quality process</a> advocated by the QA Interest Group, and the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/Unicorn/" title="Unicorn Project - QA @ W3C">Unicorn Project</a>, as a means to give Webmasters the <em>big picture</em> about the quality of their sites.</p>

<p>One of the orientations followed during these years was to provide not only reliable, but usable quality testing tools. Better User Interfaces and documentation, as well as localization in several languages other than English, helped make the tools more popular and widely used, hence spreading the concepts of quality among Web designers and developers. </p>

<p>Early on, development and maintenance of the QA tools involved volunteers in an open source project management style, under the auspices of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tools/qa-dev/" title="Tools development effort [qa-dev] - QA @ W3C">qa-dev task force</a>. After a few years, the effort grew to include large communities of Web professionals and amateurs, with dozens of developers coding, patching or reporting bugs, experimented users providing support to others and improving documentation, and hundreds-strong mailing-lists for discussions about the tools.</p>

<p>This involvement of the community of Web developers and designers not only helped leverage its energy, it also spread within its ranks the concepts of quality, conformance, creating more demand for ways to author on the Web in a consistent and reliable manner.</p>

<p class="highlights">W3C plans to continue maintenance and development of quality tools through a collaboration between the W3C Systems and Communication staff, with a community of users and volunteers continuing to play a crucial role. </p>


<h3 id="education">Education and Outreach</h3>


<p>Building tools was one facet of the effort made within the QA Activity to raise awareness about Web quality. Special attention was given to also producing documents and resources. </p>

<p>This first took the form of a number of <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Library/" title="The W3C QA Library">writings, articles and tutorials</a>, short and efficient <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/" title="W3C QA - Quality Tips for Webmasters">Tips for Webmasters</a>. Many of these articles have been widely adopted, and are regarded as useful references by Web creators.</p>

<p>In the later years of the Activity, production of education and introduction material on W3C technologies took the form of the <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/" title="W3C Q&amp;A Weblog">Q&amp;A weblog</a>, engaging W3C staff and participants, beyond the realm of QA, in an active dialogue with the public.
W3C also plans to continue this
successful, informal, and active forum after the closure of the QA Activity.</p>

<p>The Quality Assurance Interest Group also fostered better knowledge of Web technologies by supporting other efforts in Education and Outreach, notably through a liaison with the Web Standards Project's <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/Library/WaW" title="WASP asks W3C - index - QA @ W3C">“WaSP asks the W3C”</a> and <a href="http://webstandards.org/action/edutf" title="Education Task Force - The Web Standards Project">Education Task Force</a>.</p>

<p class="highlights">W3C has engaged in a larger dialog with the Web community. Staying in touch, creating more contacts, sharing work is one of the major goals of W3C platform in the near future.</p>

<h2 id="future">Future</h2>

<p  class="highlights">Quality remains a high priority for W3C, and an ongoing project.
Through the dedication of the community, the QA Activity made great strides towards its <a href="#mission">mission</a>,
and quality through testing, etc. has been adopted as part
of W3C Working Group culture.
During this effort it has become clear that W3C needs to re-engage
with developers and the Web community, to listen, and to understand
user needs more clearly.
In the medium-term, W3C will be reallocating staff resources to make this happen and engage in a <a href="http://www.w3.org/QA/">closer dialog</a> with those who are making the Web a reality.</p>

<p>If you are interested in contributing to this effort, please contact us by sending an email to <a href="mailto:w3t-qa@w3.org?subject=[w3c]%20your_topic_here">w3t-qa@w3.org</a>.</p>


<h3>QA Mailing Lists</h3>

<p>W3C has these expectations for QA Activity mailing lists:</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-qa/" title="www-qa@w3.org Mail Archives">www-qa</a> will remain open. This list is for general
discussion on QA.</li>
<li> <a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-evangelist/" title="public-evangelist@w3.org Mail Archives">public-evangelist</a> will remain open.
This list is for outreach and sharing information about W3C technology.</li>
<li>www-qa-wg closed in 2005<./li>
</ul>

<p>The communities around both mailing lists that will remain
open are important, if not always active.</p>

<h2 id="acknowledgments">Acknowledgments</h2>

<p>The QA Activity would not have been successful without the support of individuals and their companies. It has been a mesmerizing experience to work with people of high human quality. W3C would like to thank </p>

<ul>
    <li>QA Activity Leads: Daniel Dardailler (W3C), Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C), Karl Dubost (W3C)</li>
    <li>QA Working Group Chairs: Lofton Henderson (OASIS), Karl Dubost (W3C)</li>
    <li>QA Interest Group Chairs: Lynne Rosenthal (NIST), Olivier Théreaux (W3C), Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems)</li>
    <li>QA Working Group participants: Tim Boland (NIST),  Patrick Curran (Sun Microsystems), Daniel Dardailler (W3C), Dimitris Dimitriadis (Ontologicon), Karl Dubost (W3C), Peter Fawcett (RealNetworks), Kirill Gavrylyuk (Microsoft), Dominique Hazaël-Massieux (W3C), Lofton Henderson (OASIS), Ian Jacobs (W3C), Richard Kennedy (Boeing),  Rob Lanphier (RealNetworks), David Marston (IBM Research), Sandra Martinez (NIST), Lynne Rosenthal (NIST), Alex Rousskov (Measurement Factory), Mark Skall (NIST), Andrew Thackrah (Open Group), Olivier Théreaux (W3C), Vanitha Venkatraman (Sun Microsystems)</li>
    <li>The <strong>individual participants of QA IG</strong> have been very important in fostering the QA effort and raising the awareness of quality and W3C technologies to the Web community.</li>
</ul>


<hr />

<p id="about-ac-mtg"><!--This paragraph will be updated automatically-->
    This Activity Statement was prepared for the
  November 2007 <a href="/Member/Meeting/">W3C Advisory
  Committee Meeting</a> (<a href="http://cgi.w3.org/MemberAccess/">Members only</a>) per <a href="/Consortium/Process/activities#Activities">section 5</a>
  of the <a href="/Consortium/Process/">W3C Process Document</a>.
  <a href="/2005/04/activity/processActivityStatements.xsl">Generated</a>
  from <a href="http://www.w3.org/2000/04/mem-news/public-groups.rdf">group data</a>.
  </p>

<address>
<a href="/People/karl/">Karl Dubost</a>, QA
Activity Lead
</address>

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