Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Teleconference -- 27 Oct 2014

<trackbot> Date: 27 October 2014

<MichaelC> Minutes of yesterday´s meeting

Recap of Sunday meeting

<Loretta> scribe:Loretta

AWK: Summary of yesterday's meeting

Meeting with Mobile Task Force, noting that some of the techniques they want to propose don't fit into the WCAG2 success criteria. Decided not to worry about this, but use it as input for potential future directions.

Also, reviewed process so TF and WG can work together more smoothly. TF will prioritize techniques work and send to WG for review and feedback.

We looked at some of the survey data from the recent survey on the WCAG documents (guidelines, understanding, techniques).

We received ~75 responses to the survey, generating 30 pages of written comments.

Also discussed the long term vision for WCAG - ideas, concerns, thoughts.

This is also on today's agenda.

Evangelos: what is the Mobile Task Force producing?

AWK: Some modifcations of existing techniques, some new techniques, and gap analysis for things that aren't covered by the WCAG2 success criteria.
... there is also a Cognitive Task Force, producing similar output.

Evangelos: This is a good opportunity, but challening to relate techniques to accessibility support issues.
... we are going through one of these techniques in detail to evaluate it, and understanding and controlling the environment is very important. THis becomes even more critical for mobile.

<AWK> Mobile techniques work: https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/mobile-a11y-tf/wiki/Technique_Development_Assignments

AWK: We have seen changes proposed to test procedures to allow testing with mobile devices, and new examples to demonstrate application of the technique in a mobile environment.

Discuss ways to increase engagement by working group members

AWK: This is a challenge (and probably not just for WCAG).
... On a call we typically have 8-10 people attending. We usually have a survey; sometimes not filled out until right before the call.
... The WG list shows ~150 people, not all of whom are on the WG.
... THere are also multiple task forces that people participate in.
... People are busy, and it is hard to find time to do work. Any thoughts about how to improve the level of engagement?
... We recognize that the purpose of the WG has changed over time. Before 2008, it was about getting the standard out the door. Now it is more maintenance mode for the standard, because we aren't changing it. BUt there is still lots of work to do to hlep people undersrand the standard, etc.

MC: People disengage when they feel like things aren't relevant. Do people question the relevance, and what do we do to make it more relevant?
... Is maintaining techniques and understanding doing that.

XX: In publishing, there is a lot of interest; people need to know how to make their textbooks accessible.

Mark: There is a lot of discussion on WAI-IG and in WCAG about interpreting WCAG. This could be turned into new techniques.

Marc: relevancy issue - comments about people who are frustrated about submitting techniques that get rejected.
... Do we need more education on how to write good techniques, and what the WG is looking for.

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to mention resource transformation and to mention contribution supports

<MichaelC> Techniques Submission Form

MC: We talked yesterday about whether the resources are what they need to be to support the public. If we were working on better resources, would people feel better about what they are accomplishing? But revising a 1000 page document is a big undertaking.
... I don't think there has been a technique submitted through the public path that has been accepted. People tend to submit things that are incomplete, and they don't know what we are looking for even when we try to document it.
... How to enable WG members more? Recent switch to github to make changes easier to propose.

<AWK> LGR: I'm hearing that there is a lot of external interest

<AWK> LGR: not hearing why someone would join the WG to provide that support

Marc: How do we get feedback to the companies about the importance of the WG member contributions?
... Other work is often prioritized higher than standards work.

Evangelo: have you thought about accreditation of techniques?
... we were creating a hub (wiki) for information about accessibility. we were encouraging people to add content (links to other info). We found we needed to add some kind of accreditation mechanism, so people get explicit credit for their work.
... Have people submit test samples, and abstract the test samples to a technique.

Marc: Is Shadi's database doing something like that?

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to ask observer opinions and to ask about support materials vs guideline development and to talk about being where the stakeholders are and to talk about WG

Evangelo: I'm also involved in that work.

MC: One challenge is that we get rough ideas for techniques and it is hard for WG members to turn that into a technique. It is hard to find WG members to take on this work.
... Can we put resources where the people we want to reach are looking. Would this help? Are there copyright issues that would block this?
... Question for people who aren't in the WG: why are you not members? Would be helpful feedback for us.

Tzviya: In the ebook world, the Daisy consortium is working to build a tester. It is a lot of work, and accessibility is rarely binary.

ebooktest.org

Mary Jo: For me it is a bandwidth issue, and we have Marc representing us.

Mary Jo: I am involved in various task forces, including cognitive.

Mary Jo: hard to juggle all I'm doing. I tend to submit technique ideas rather than complete technique submissions.

Wilhelm: For me, it is a bandwidth issue. I was thinking about drive by contributions. I've written a bit of code but haven't written the words about it.. May be a typical pattern,
... I joined the group becuase WCAG is now part of legislation, and everyone is scrambling to understand these requirements. Now I am thinking that our government has an organization to educate people. Why can't we leverage this work better.

MC: Canada has a similar group, but we haven't managed to work together effectively

AWK: Maybe we should be analyzing why this isn't working better.

Can_Wang: We have different motivations. We are research scientists, and we are motivated by the interesting problems we can find.
... we study the guidelines to find possible areas for investigation, and we also helped with the translation of WCAG into Chinese.

AWK: Especially as the mobile and cognitive task forces do their work, we expect to uncover more areas that need research.

Can_Wang: We find inconsistency between what WCAG2 requires and the experience of disabled people. Users are not satisfied with their experience. It seems there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Yatil: Writing supporting documents is not the exciting thing that writing a standard is.
... People say WCAG is a lot to read, and then you need to read the rest of the supporting documents. Improving this experience would improve engagement.
... On another group, people will work on pretty boring stuff.

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to say improving our resources is not just better for the world, it´s better for us and to straw poll if people think what we do is not a priority, or how we

MC: WE talked yesterday about how to improve the resources for the end users. I hear you say we should make it easier to work on the resources.
... We talked about making an example the first thing people find. This is how Wilhelm said that he started.
... Do people feel like what we are doing is a prirority and we just have resource conflicts, or do we think we should be focusing on something different

XX: I am not a WG member. I use your documents all the time.

MC: Question for David McDonald about Canadian government work, and why those agencies are't engaging with us more directly.

DM: There is a cost involved.

<AWK> ack

DM: THe departments are looking out for themselves. I often end up as a proxy for them with the working group.

JO: I work with government groups, and think the high cost of getting involved keeps them from working with us.
... THe current process takes too miuch time commitment - immersion.
... Accessibility has dropped off the radar a bit. I still have work, clients, but it doesn't seem to have the same imperative as it did 5-6 years ago.

<David> Here it is crazy busy

MC: Several people in the room said the contrary. Maybe it varies regionally.

<David> I'll dial back in momentarily... taking a call...

AWK: We expect there will be a new version of Section 508 released at some point. We expect there will be a flurry of activity there. This seems like what Wilhelm is experiencing in Norway.
... THose times are a great opportunity to communicate that this is not THAT hard. WHen people come to our documents, they get the impression that it si REALLY hard to do, maybe just from the amount they need to read?
... Recent WG weekly meeting has been: respond to public comment, or review technique from one of the task forces or created in response to a public comment.
... Do people find this engaging, or would we rather find an easier way to handle comments, approve techniques, etc.
... Can we handle those in a more asynchronous way, so we could do different work on the call?

Wilhelm: Synchronous is hard for me; asynchronous is much better.

AWK: For people in China, Australia the time of our call is not convenient.

Marc: I like the calls. I'll see new situations or find out new information. The difficulty is that I find the W3C tools very hard to work with. Can't read the different fields of the form easily, there is no link. I spend the entire 30 minutes for a WCAG task just getting to the point where Im ready to do something.

<David> back

JN: THe survey works pretty well, and having the call seems like the only way we ever converge on approving a technique.

MC: WOuld we use a wiki style where people just make changes?

JN: Yes, but that means people need to go back and review after changes have been made?

David Burns: Can you just file bugs to handle things?

MC: I feel inundated by mailing lists that have bugs. ANd I start ignoring them.

ZZ: We use bugs for different components, and count on people to monitor their component?

MC: Maybe people who care can monitor the component.

AWK: That is the current process with survey and call.

Wilhelm: We are struggling with the same things in our working group, and the component/bug process is what seems to work best.

ZZ: Bugs set up so that it goes only to the owner, and then responses are sent only to people who add themselves to the bug.

JN: Only downside to bugs is that whoever has the most bandwidth sometimes wins the bug war,

<Joshue> LGR: It will make things more flexible but there may be looser deadlines

AWK: We have investigated using bugzilla. Concerned about whether it is accessible enough.
... We also need some way to let anyone submit a comment. Anyone who has an account can submit comments, but is that too high a bar, since some of our comments come from people who are not tecnical.
... May need some way to let people email comment and get it entered to bugzilla by someone.

ZZ: That is whjat we do in our WG.

AWK: Can the submitter see the bug without an account?

ZZ: When a spec change is made, the commit number goes in to the bug.

<AWK> ack

JO: WHat if we only did a call every 2 weeks, and pushed some work to the asynchronous channels? We could see how it went.

MC: IN IndieUI we meet every 2 weeks. In practice, not much gets done between meetings.
... Other groups have other experiences, but it takes management.

DM: I've never seen any success with anything but a weekly call.
... To have success, I think it would need to be pretty structured.

<David> brb

Long-term vision / WAI2020

<David> you guys sound like you are having WAYYY too much FUN!

<Joshue> AWK: The problem of increasing engagement isn't unique to WCAG

<MarkS> scribe: MarkS

Plan for reaching out to stakeholders

Long-term vision / WAI2020

AWK: Judy, what is your perspective on how WCAG WG can help achieve goals of WAI2020

JB: Thanks to everyone here for their participation
...RE: participation. I think its great that there are people involved in the WG that weren't involved before. ONgoign interest, ongoing energy
... need more technical support materials
... need to start thinking about what will be needed for the future. esp. technological needs
... would encourage you to look at diversity across different technology fields
... come up with a framework that is flexible enough to go gracefully beyond the traditional web.
... we're beyond the PC already. We've done well transition to mobile, but there is digital pub, WOT, automotive, TV, etc.
... online learning.
... expand Tech for WCAG 2, but also bring in experts/participants from other growth areas of the web platform
... recruitment goals
... incredible network of people interested in accessibility. Reach out and invite them to participate.
... Started talking about WAI2020 at CSUN 2013. Discussion was hard to do in little pieces. There was a follow-up planning meeting.
... looking at the future, it involves a whole ecosystem of other groups and accessibility architecture.
... I decided it was not something we could do piecemeal. Hoping in the next 3-6 months to have more focused conversations with this group and other guidelines group, like ATAG and UAAG WG
... Authoring Tool is moving toward testing phase and User Agent may take advantage of new process and enter testing as well.
... suggest taking some time to look at those drafts. Deep review. Think about how it will work in the future.
... WCAG is much more mature. Tech support material has been through a few iterations of refinement.
... Need something that is more refined, browser, mobile app, etc.
... how can it fit together in a more combined framework.
... need to think Next Gen. How can we bring these together, making them easier to consume and use.
... so that it can apply to the future web platform.
... would like WCAG to interface better with AT and UA guidelines
... need to bridge content and user interface. Think about mobile accessibility. There are gaps, but they are mostly on the User Agent side.
... how to have more seamlessly integrated guidance on that.
... WCAG has been broadly taken up around the world. The UN CRPD has been a factor on this. Article 9 and 21 talk about the rights of access to technology for people with disabilities.
... not fully ratified yet, but 150 countries have signed on.
... WCAG is the mature resource for many countries seeking guidance around legislation.
... Europe, Asia, parts of N. America, many countries have contributed to WCAG and are interested in adopting it.
... Now they want to test for conformance
... This group should figure out what has gone well in these diverse environments. Especially in regards to testing. Don't break things that are working well
... better testability
... Cognitive area is another kind of challenge. Do the right kind of technical work, have the right discussions so people know what the goals are.
... with WCAG 2, we didn't have a lot of research techniques in this area to base our work on. That has changed. Need to continue to support harmonization.
... hope the Cog a11y TF will bring in Techniques.
... just starting to get analysis reports from them
... tie into research. There is a research and development WG, partner with them, do a research symposium on cognitive to help with long term planning

<Joshue> +q

AWK: one of the questions that came up yesterday was around quality vs quantity with regard to accessibility standards. Trying to get people to implement them is that people feel like there is too much to do.
... if we talk about adding more things, we need to think about how we setup our requirements so that conforming is overwhelming or unattainable.

JB: Looking forward to the results and analysis from the survey.
... thank for coordinating with EOWG on that.
... We're trying to figure out how how to have discussions with people to get input on the overall framework

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to ask about core requirements

<MichaelC> WCAG 2.0 Requirements

JB: what kind of dialogs can we have with different groups, without people missing the point or thinking that WCAG 2 will be gone next week.

MC: RE cognitive and other areas, there have been criticisms that WCAG doesn't address them. A core requirement is that they were testable and tech independent. That made cognitive and others very difficult to address.
... need to carefully consider such limiting requirements in the future.

JB: Where is the right place to be on the continuum of testability
... are there ways to structure the guidelines so that there is room for flexibility
... testable statements, etc.

JO: UAAG may already address some of the core requirements on the platform side.
... low vision users for instance, may not have their needs address, but UAAG addresses that on the platform side.
... complexity around dealing with mobile accessibility. A simple mapping between browser and AT that can port over to mobile space.
... gesture mapping
... the work on that can't be done by WCAG alone.
... we have work to do, and part of that is knowing what everyone else is working on in regards to this.

JB: I think that WCAG WG is at a better vantage point, given maturity of work and implementation experience. One of the strongest roles of this group will be helping to figure out the future framework.
... nobody else is coordinating this effort. Would love to see this group become very aware of how all these pieces fit together.

Wil: I'm coming from the outside here. Norway has now adopted WCAG as official regulation. I spent 7 years at Opera testing browsers and web sites in browsers.
... I've been trying to educate designers, developers, etc. on how to comply with WCAG
... what I struggle with is that there is a flood of guidelines and support documents. I would suggest that this group try to do less, to write less content.
... precise testable statements in the spec.

<wilhelm> http://w3c.github.io/aria-in-html/#custom-control-accessible-development-checklist

Wil: in my classes, we read through the requirements. i read one requirement and I get blank stares.
... I think the ARIA in HTML document does this well. Plain, simple language.
... pages and pages of text, refined into a small list of things. Be great to move towards this direction instead of techniques.
... I've been trying to make a browser that understands all the crap code that developers write, this is a similar challenge.
... RE keyboard accessibility. I can't recall the number of times I've seen event listeners with incomplete support for focus, etc. Ask browser vendors to develop heuristics to fix these common mistakes

JB: If we are going to come up with something that works for the future, it will mean asking the hard questions and not stepping on toes.

<David> brb

JB: RE request to write less, I think the feedback of the survey may shed more light on that. WAI has a greater effort in place to write things that are more usable. Make things more findable.
... need based
... we have a project hopefully coming in 2015 to make that easier
... How can we build towards resources that make developing accessible websites easier.
... have user agents doing more of the work
... what if we can get to a point where more of this is automatable

<Zakim> jamesn, you wanted to say we talked about that in a PF meeting
...RE: motivating people with legislation. its complex and not always the way you think. orgs for social responsibility, cost, etc.
... 3 carrots and a stick

<Zakim> yatil, you wanted to mention ARIA accessibility API standardization and to mention tooling

JN: we have talked about fixing click handlers in the browsers. that has to happen in PF

EE: In reviewing tutorials, I have seen things that need to be specified across standards. Like fieldsets, inconsistencies with how AT and browsers announce the UI
... right now, developers have to consider so many different factors beyond their control to create the best UI for the most UAs

Loretta: would love to figure out how to engage the browser vendors in adding more support for shoring up accessibility pitfalls.

<jamesn> PF minutes where the onclick was discussed fyi http://www.w3.org/2014/01/24-aria-minutes.html - search for click

Wil: I started out as Browser engineer, building web sites, now I'm a web developer with knowledge or browser engineering.
... to take onclick example again. We just need one engineer at one browser to do it and then test it. experiments and testing is very cheap to do. browser vendors are use to these safety nets
... if you have two paths, the one for the smallest audience will die. we need to make sure these things work no matter how you access the content.

<Judy> [judy really likes Wilhelm's formulation of how to convince browsers to support accessibility "People do these things. It would work better if we helped them."

Wil: alt content for images for instance. how do I work with someone with 10K images with no alt text? Encourage them to write a good figcaption which benefits everyone.
... browser vendors will not be happy with separate paths.

DB: browsers try to layer themselves on top of the OS with regards to a11y, what happens below the browser is very complicated and hard to make work consistently across other browsers.
... getting solutions in one browser to work on all platforms is another challenge.

Evangelos: we're facing the same challenge from the evaluation tool perspective. Was it the developers intention, or a mistake?

If we could have a list of bad patterns used by developers, it could help solve some of these issues from other angles.

scribe: RE tooling, i think we need a decision support system based on WCAG

JB: we are looking to get funding for a project that would be a decision based tool for getting at the right resources.
...RE: reusability of resources, i have researched figcaptions. Trying to find out if they truly were equal replacements for alt. There were types of documents, like scientific publications, where they would universally fail.
... its important to be careful about assumptions about how things can be repurposed.
... distinguishing those is hard.

AWK: who do we reach out to to get this work done. how do we get started. Its a new set of guidelines, who do we involve. Browsers, digipub, etc.
... identify where there are international differences. Lots of pieces there that we need to understand better.
... need to have structure conversations around those challenges as well.

Plan for reaching out to stakeholders

JB: because wCAG is being used in places around the world, it will be there for a number of years.
... please be thoughtful about how you have these discussions.
... need to understand the right questions to ask regarding what the future look likes and what the framework will be.
... need to know the right questions to ask.
... as you get feedback, be careful how you position it.

AWK: Reaching out to other groups. No grand plan formulated at this point.

<David> Best thing about WCAG is the separation of stable non-technical normative docs, from evolving technical docs

JO: we really need to pull together on this. Look at all the options as creatively as possible. Its complicated and nuanced.
... this great stuff that other groups are doing, I feel like we are not tuned in enough.
... want to look more closely at what other WAI groups and other W3C groups are doing.

AWK: Judy feels like WCAG is the place for all of this to happen or coordinate

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to say web * a11y guidelines

MC: in addition to the fact that this WG is in a different position...
... puts us in a position to start the conversation
... is there a need for separate working groups. we can have all the same people involved in a broader discussion.
... thinking about a project of this sort at a company, one team would take the lead and others could join in if they wanted to.
... other groups are interested in getting their specs published. Is there a way we could involve other groups in a less painful way
... we don't expect to have any new guidelines published in many years, so we could take the lead on this and show that there is work worth pursuing.

AWK: there is a question of bandwidth limitation with this group too. This is a large undertaking

Loretta: but this may draw more people in too

MC: we should survey the community.

Evangelos: We need to think about the Web Platform. How what we have now for WGs will fit in with this vision.
... WCAG, is this really content? is it application?

Loretta: be great to have a place to collect feedback, especially when people are frustrated.

MC: but be careful not to lose what is good while changing everything up.

AWK: what are next steps? Groups to reach out to?

MC: talked about reaching out to stakeholders, resource maintenance, new guidelines, engagement... need to identify all the intersections.
... sounds like an administrative task we can work on and come back to in a few weeks.

Wil: not all of this needs to be active from the stakeholders part. We can infer much of it. How do people do this particular thing today? Testing tools, reporting tools that browser vendors use reveal a lot of this
... I was doing some research on how people enlarge text to see if we really need to use relative font sizes. I approached mozilla to see if they had stats on this. They didn't have it, but it wasn't hard for them to collect. We just need to ask.

MC: this data intersects with data we don't have that would be insightful.
... talking about how for each need there would be multiple ways of meeting it. would like to know what those possibilities are.
... also don't want guidelines to constrain creativity.

AWK: we could reach out to david bolter with questions for usage statistics at mozilla. not sure of any other contacts

MC: I think we could spend the next year doing requirements gathering

DM: We could follow the example of soliciting feedback right from our specs and documentation that HTML5 uses.

<Zakim> wanna, you wanted to talk about China accessibility community group

KZ: china accessibility group, has done WCAG authorized translation. They are also interested in web applications on mobile.

etc.

scribe: want to know how else we can contribute to this and other w3c groups.
... its hard for us to join most calls because of timezone.

AWK: coming up with a list of questions regarding usage, would not be happening on the call, but would be asynchronous work. That would be a way to participate, especially if you could get data from the Chinese market.

KZ: WCAG does not cover all of the ways we use the web. Perhaps we could give feedback on where the gaps are, etc.

AWK: how here is interested in participating in this type of work?

MC, Loretta, Wilhelm shows interest

JN: its difficult to measure since we don't know the motivation behind behavior. Is it because it doesn't work well, or there is a better way.

<AWK> MarkS: Important to introduce the concept of confidence in the data

<David> I'm interested

<David> what's for lunch?

<AWK> Link to survey and responses: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ynxzlvezphy5efz/AADkppu3ANhjj1B6_15yjCvRa?dl=0

Review of survey data analysis with EO and WAI-DEV project

<David> scribe: Joshue

AWK: Theres a lot of useful candid feedback
... Some rather detailed, speaking to individual preferences
... We have new questions on the back of the trends that we identify
... We hope to collaborate with EO and others on this
... There is a lot for us to do, what do you (EO) want to do with this info?

SH: We don't have anything specific at the moment

AWK: There are requests for it to be more interactive
... Questions?

Who are the responders?

AWK: They are anonymous unless they chose not to be
... We asked about many job categories..

Could you choose more than one?

AWK: I think you could only choose one

It was distributed how?

AWK: WebAIM, WAI IG, FB, Twitter, ALA
... These groups do represent who is listening to us.
... It was open to anyone to fill in

How long was it open?

AWK: About 3 weeks

SH: What about government people?

AWK: They couldn't fill it in

SH: Are you going to leave it open?

AWK: It is technically open
... Not sure how to close it, without closing it!
... Now we need to do our analysis
... We are asking members to parse the comments and give our tranches of them to members
... Then we can identify hot buttons, trends etc
... We have many options for repurposing etc that could be easily re-presented

Kevin: So you are trying to identify themes? More qualified approach?

AWK: Yes, and hopefully there are some low hanging fruit that we can easily adjust for max benefit. AB type stuff, we have an opportunity to use this stuff in a structured way.

Wayne: How are people approaching the content?

… Did you ask how people got to certain content?

AWK: No
... Discoverability is important though

Tzviya asks about which people have been reached by the survey, as only people with knowledge of WCAG seem to have answered.

AWK: We didn't just send it to a11y groups
... It was sent via ALA etc they have a broader base
... It is hard to know what the real response rate.

JOC: It was tweeted to approx 700k people

I'm a little concerned that the number of developers were rather low.

AWK: It is a little raw, but devs represent about 25 percent

Vivienne: If we were to open it wider, I would like to see this opened out more to developers

They are the ones with the problems etc

Many of them are not on those groups, as they may not know about them

Industry associations, computer societies etc

AWK: Absolutely

<Zakim> MichaelC, you wanted to say this suvey wasn´t for decision making, it was to help us ask questions

MC: This was a figuring out what the questions are survey
... We may well do another

AWK: Indeed, and we may make it shorter
... It is a commitment to complete it

SH: If people were quiting, were the results of their partial work kept?

AWK: I think so
... fatigue is evident in the results
... Comments are longer in the beginning for example

Evangelios: I agree that the next survey should target devs

Also asking about frameworks etc would be a good idea

AWK: I agree that we do want to hear from all these groups
... Naturally, devs are a core group and there is a shortage here.

As opposed to those who are doing a11y evaluations.

AWK: Yes

QuickRef improvement planning work

<AWK> http://www.w3.org/WAI/DEV/

<shawn> https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Resource_Redesign/Quickref/Analysis

AWK: This has funding from the EU commission
... The first links are the deliverables etc, Eric would you like to talk about this?

EE: The project is about looking at the Quickref, or a new doc that could replace it.
... This isn't set, so we have options.
... The idea is that we have an interactive tool for all things WCAG
... Thats it

WD: That is what my question about access path was referring to.

AWK: Right
... Its an interesting question, it is one of the challenges that we have that we can't get access to server data that would tell us
... We're just not sure what paths people are taking
... Don't know how to address this.

<vivienne> http://www.accessiq.org/web-accessibility-wizard

This is a web a11y wizard

VC: It can be tweaked, its role based. You may like to look at it.

AWK: Eric do you know it?

EE: No

VC: Shadi is
... <gives overview of the tool>

AWK: Cool
... Are Access Australia members?

Yes

WAI friendly

AWK: We are looking at maybe doing some more asynchronous work
... Others will benefit from using asynch tools and methods

<wilhelm> http://wja.no/wcag/

Wil: I've been giving courses, I struggle with info overload. I use a version of this.
... <Gives overview of the tool>

likes tersifying

AWK: Do you want to take us through the wiki page Eric?

EE: Eo have been thinking about the Quickref etc. I took them, added my own also.
... The first things are the goals
... We want to make it easier to use.
... There are complaints about too much info.
... <overview of goals>

Have one place to send everybody (One-stop shop)

Possibility to tailor the output on the individual’s needs.

Help clarify interrelationships between sufficient techniques

<David> I was there when it was called the Traffic Cop

AWK: For those involved in the original Quickref..have these goals changed?

JOC: Great question AWK

SH: It wasn't documented

LG: It's got to be minimal

SH: There wasn't that kind of analysis

<David> ack q+

EE: We are are trying to anticipate what devs want to see
... Maybe we need to lower the bar, make it more intuitive
... The wiki page also outlines the audience for the tool.
... I also look at functionality, provided for discussion and we can then decide a route.
... We need to nail down what we want to provide

SH: On the functionality, we need to know what things are UI enhancements, content additions and tagging
... Its mostly UI

EE: The aim is not write more documentation but better organise things

SH: For the most part, there are one or two extra pieces of content

EE: But its not the main thrust of the work

SH: It may fit under another deliverable

MC: I was asking what you view on that was

EE: I think the content just needs to be organised better.
... If we find stuff that isn't fitting well we can have another look

LGR: I am caught by the comment on organising WCAG based on how users come at this

SH: We have done usability testing and hope to come back at that

LGR: I'm wondering what that content would look like, its a different approach

SH: Its very open

EE: So rather than organising via HTML, CSS, we could have images etc on one page

LGR: There would have to be agreement on terms?

EE: Yes

DMacD: Here are some of my earlier drawings, traffic cop etc

<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to follow up on Michael question on new content

SH: I want to follow up on Michaels question etc
... Regarding the level of the wording..WCAG needs to be accurate and cover a broad range of situations.
... When we had easy checks we didn't have that...
... Easy checks is focussed on evaluations of existing sites
... One idea would be to have the easy laypersons terms etc then go to the official docs for more details

That could be less intimidating

Wilh: Don't want a dumbed down version

SH: Then progressive enhancement would be the way to go
... We looked at this back in the day

MC: We struggled with the coding of that

<tzviya> http://diagramcenter.org/54-9-tips-for-creating-accessible-epub-3-files.html

We had a number of organisations looking at this..@@

<Sharron> scribe: Sharron

define different use cases, present varied perspectives

Shawn: yes that is part of what we have brainstormed, roles and tasks as well

EE: Yes we are still compiling differnt profiles of users. What we don't need to do it try to cover ALL use cases

Vivienne: It would be good to be able to know when Techniques have been updated, when was the last time it was changed

AWK: That is a significant challenge. We have archival info that still gets found in searches. To know what has changed you would have to look at the DIF version.

Vivienne: That could be quite frustrating

Evangelos: Knowinghow the updates are realted to other techniques like ARIA, is there interdependence, does it replace another?

Shawn: Would be interesting to know if the survey picks up comments of that kind

Loretta: Could start today putting dates on latest revisions

Shawn: and it is something we have permission for

Loretta: Won't fix all the problems, but is a place to start.

AWK: Depending on how the info is represented within this new tool/guide, unless we point directly to the Techniques, the tool would have to inidcate that.

Vivienne: I think about how you would update physical manuals.

<David> Early Quick ref, was the Traffic cop http://davidmacd.com/WCAG/wcag-traffic-cop/trafficcop.html

<David> goes back to about 2004

Shawn: So this is a specific siiue. My question now is how to document issues of this nature and then what happens...who will chronicle the issues and how toaddress.

AWK: I will capture that in the wiki
... and what decisions need to made first?

EE: We need a list of goals, who is doing what and having a look at what use cases will be covered
... the define the best tool to use and which of the functionality scenarios are best used to acheive thengoals

Loretta: Looking at these goals, I am not sure that introducing WCAG2 starts with the concpet of accessiiblity

Shawn: Good point to bring up. Do we want a layer of a place to start?

Kevin: A starting place for whom? Is this a tool to support the job of developers to do what they need to do?
... to some extent this depends on the survey data.
... we may have a gap there to fill in order to understand what developers need. In any case we must be very specific about who the sudience is. What do we want to provide and to whom? Who is this really for?

Wayne: I think we have not considered are intermediate users. Those who are responsible for developing their site, are not accessiiblity experts, don't want to be. I woudl not want to use the HTML5 spec to learn HTML5 so I would not expect people to learn about accessiiblity from the WCAG spec

<shawn> an intro "Accessibility Principles - How People with Disabilities Use the Web" http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/people-use-web/principles

Wayne: when we did EasyChecks the idea was what is the minimum number of tests we could do to hit the greatest number of SCs. That is one thing that made it so useful. One test hit several things. A developer could use it as a quick way to be sure they are at least getting to basics.

<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to comment audience

Wayne: want to try to provide this with the Techniques, so developers have at least a minimum awareness.

Shawn: Thanks and I think the goals are not quite focused enough. Do we want to teach basics of accessiiblity - I am with Loretta questioning that. And the part for newbies, is that appropriate?

AWK: And it could be as simple as knowing that if newbies show up, we know where to point them. So Wayne's point that our sweet spot may be the intermediate developer who wants a lifeline in a freindly package rather than a complete education.

<David> Johnny lunchbox developer

<vivienne> http://www.accessiq.org/web-accessibility-wizard

Kevin: It is also important to acknowledge that when we talk about developers, WCAG has more to slice aobut different kinds of what we call developers "content" "design" etc

Vivienne: We generally start with an overview of the WAI documents, how they are organized around the overarching principles. Perhaps that is the place to start. An introduction to the roganziational structure may be all some need to reduce the level of anxiety.

<Joshue> right!

<Joshue> +1 to Loretta

<Joshue> wonders just how much you actually can sweeten the pill

Vivienne: what WCAG is and how it relates to them. Avoiding the incredible detail to begin with. So rather than pointing them away, give them a branching path into the documents. If told they need to meet WCAG2, people search and land on the spec.
... they promptly faint. Can we not guide them more gently into the docs, supporting docs.

Shawn: Was their any feedback in the survey about WCAG Overview?

Loretta: Some said yes, and it was very useful but some said they had never seen it.

Shawn: The point is that we have useful documents but some never find those.

<David> :)

Loretta: There is a back link in WCAG but it seems not to be working well

<Joshue> wonders if we removed a lot of the boilerplate stuff- really narrowed down extraneous language, then keyword hooks would be more accurate no?

Kevin: It is buried and not clearly stating that "if you are new....START HERE" If WCAG2 is the search, you get the spec

tzviya: If you search for WCAG, Overview is first

Shawn: EO will take action to change title to WCAG2

Wayne: And this can be the place where we route people where they need to go

Loretta: Then we can provide the right pathway to the developer who just wants to understand how to meet the requirements in the shortest time.

EE: For example, if they are looking for how to meet the image requirements, they would have a general statement - all image must have a text alternative - and then the exceptions.

<Zakim> yatil, you wanted to say that even intermediate a11y devs often don’t have basic knowledge and to mention “linkhub”

<Joshue> +q

<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to channel shadi

James: From my perspective, the Techniques must provide a way to abstract and give solutions, even number of steps to do to achieve accessiiblity. The fundamental problem is that we are getting buried. Some of the Tutorials are going in the right direction but may be too proscribed. Developers need more flexibility.

Shawn: Channeling Shadi, he has gotten feedback that How to Meet is skewed more strongly toward developers and designers than evaluators and they want resources.

James: There are many more developers than evaluators so is that not how it should be?

Josh: Taking off my chair hat, I agree with James. Sometimes slavish adherance to WCAG can get in the way of helping people understand the resources that we have. How can WCAG-WG and WAI get behind materials that don't precisely meet WCAG2 but move people in the right direction.

James: Not sure I was going there. Rather that something might be a good techniques even if it contradicts one bit of WCAG.
... in the end the question is are you doing the right thing?

Josh: And the degree to which that causes discomfort. But we must understand that our cycles must be spent meeting WCAG and leave to others techniques that may support accessibility in other ways.

EE: That topic is one we encountered in developing the Tutorials. We tried to distinguish between strict conformance and what we decided to call Best Practice.
... if we can make our own documents more direct, it would be useful.

Shawn: EO very much wanted to do Best Practice in the Tutorials. We are bound within the Techniques more than we were in the Tutorials.

<shawn> Sharron: tutorials very careful with the languge to clarify what is WCAG requirement versus best practices & suggestion

James: So how does that work in relation to the Guidelines?

Shawn: They are all referenced but a developer will not have to read them.

Wayne: My mental model of WCAG becasue of low vision it is looking at a new accordian. It has therefore not been difficult for me to understand them.

<David> Would love to expand collapse

Wayne: the document could more clearly presented to reflect that inherant organizational structure

Loretta: It is a structure that some people do not want to use in the way they were designed. We don't have the tree structure and filter for all use cases.

<David> I teach people to find on page... open all techniques on one page and ct- F

Shawn: That is what the WAI DEV project would like to help provide that system of filters that meet various use cases.

EE: There are two projects wrapped up here. First is getting the data into the shape and form we want and the there is the question of the UI. Must address the first. Then use this project to determine how to annotate the data that we have identified.

AWK: This has been useful to see what we need to come to conclusion on is 1. the goals and 2. the specific audience.

<Joshue> http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-08596-8_54#page-1

Josh: Did you EO folks see this paper? It was meant as a resource for developers to use WCAG. Published this year and takes a task based approach.
... interesting and I invite EO to look at that and see what you think

Esc: working on project for three different target groups: developers, commisioners and another. Taxonomy was varied and were about to publish soemthing similar to the Quick Tips.

AWK: We need to wrap up, figure out between Eric and the WGs how to continue and conclude this discussion. Can we set a goal to have this finalized and how to determine if it is the right answer?

Kevin: Does the survey data help us do that?

AWK: Certainly looking at that will help guide us to what steps we might take next.

Shawn: And we might consider the results of the usability testing.

AWK: And can look at the results of the devs we did reach.
... I expect that we can do the data analysis and have a good shot at having an agreed set of goals and target audiences by the end of November is reasonable.

All: Yep

AWK: So how to get the additional input we need? more surveys? other ways to gather data?

Shawn: I agree with setting a date and making it as soon as possible. We need to coordinate with Shadi as well.

<Joshue> Big thanks to everyone and esp AWK and Mr. Cooper

AWK: So take a break, adios. See you in 15 minutes.

<Joshue> Signing out good night

<AWK> taking a 15-20 min break

<AWK> Getting back going

Discussion of Institutional Memory project

<MaryJo> scribe: MaryJo

AWK: Trying to remember why things are the way they are in WCAG.
... 2 questions: Do we need to do this? If it is important, how can we do it?

LGR: Only reason why it might be important is to have previous debates and the resulting decision. Not sure it's reasonable to dredge up old things, but in the future could be recorded.

JN: Supports the idea that if we want to record such things, it should be done for the future.

LGR: It could be useful when you have new people come on board and when there are transitions in leadership.

DM: It is a lot of effort, and we are all short of time. If something comes up as we do our work we can capture it at that time.

<Zakim> jamesn, you wanted to ask where it is being captured?

<AWK> https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/WCAG20/Institutional_Memory

AWK: This is the wiki where we will store the information.

JN: For example there were some emails regarding SC 1.4.1 that should be captured in the wiki. Who would be responsible for updating the wiki page?

AWK: General agreement reached that information should be stored, but creating a survey specifically for documenting old decisions probably is not going to be effective.

JN: If there is anything critical for a particular technique, perhaps the understanding document should contain the reasoning why.

LGR: Is willing to pick things off of the mailing lists and put it in the wiki. Anyone else can also feel free to make edits.

AWK: Anything someone asks a question about that causes a larger discussion, we should analyze if there is something needs to be in the understanding document, techniques, etc. so we aren't answering same questions repeatedly.

Discussion of efficiency improvements for Working Group processes

AWK: Went to improve our processes. Many things that we do take up time. Adding new techniques - only Michael and Andrew tend to do that. Want others to do so and review, edit and publish them efficiently.
... Question, where do you see issues in things taking up too much time?

MJ: Tools are not always easy to use. Maybe education session on tools would be helpful to improve that - especially for new users. For example, commenting on techniques.
... There are little tidbits of knowledge, including how to use and fill out surveys that would be helpful to pass along.

LGR: Wordsmithing takes too much time. Maybe should appoint an editor to take input and be given the authority to make those changes.

MJM: Other working groups do cut off editorial discussions and trust editors to handle those things. Documents can always go out for review again and be corrected further.

LGR: People often make comments right before the meeting rather than completing them early so the survey results can be netted early for real issues for discussion and weed out editorial changes.

AWK: The earlier a survey goes out, the more time people will have to complete it early.

MJM: Perhaps the survey closure time could be made midnight of the day before the meeting.

LGR: Not enough people writing techniques and doing the surveys. Maybe we need a lighter-weight process.

AWK: Should the working group should continue to respond to well thought out issues in understanding WCAG.

DM: Maybe our job is not to respond to every comment that comes in, but only when we are seeking comments or if there are repetitive comments/questions where clarification might be needed.

AWK: It is stated in WCAG's charter, but the charter expired June 2013. It has been extended, but the charter hasn't been updated yet. It doesn't say to respond to every comment with complete group consensus.
... Perhaps we should use the list more for that discussion and have a person that names the final response out of that. This would make the development of responses more asynchronous.

MJ: The discussions are very difficult to follow because of the way the threads get copied into each other and everyone has a different style of responding or adding their input.

AWK: It is difficult because there are a lot of people on the list. Perhaps we limit discussions to active members of the working group.

LGR: If you are a member organization, you can have someone in the group who may not be active. The task force members also have to join the group, whether or not they are active in the main group.

AWK: Made a spreadsheet of the current members and 2/3 of the group are not currently actively participating that probably fall into the above categories.
... Perhaps these things should instead be logged using bugzilla.
... Then you can keep discussions on a trackable thread.

tzviya: The Github bug tracker could be used.

AWK: The current tool for comment tracking is difficult to use. You come up in the editing view, and links aren't interactive.

MJ: Can't seem to find comments that have been assigned to me, so never can find my particular work items.

Tzviya: You don't need to have an account to log bugs in the github bug tracker.

<jamesn> is the github bug tracker the same as the github issue tracker or is it something different?

AWK: Bugzilla allows you to add urls, and you can search on them, like find the WCAG bugs.

<AWK> https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/48

AWK: Github bug tracker logs them as issues.

DM: Likes the github bug tracker. Has used it in his work.

AWK: Milestones can be created and you can attach issues to the milestone.

tzviya: You can assign the bug to a specific person.

AWK: What level of accessibility does github have?

DM: Knows github has been working on accessibility. Not sure of the current status though.
... will check with Sallesh and with github to see if it is accessibility.

<Zakim> yatil, you wanted to say that EO uses Github as well

JN: Accessibility of Bugzilla isn't very good.
... It would be easy to make it accessible, but they haven't done it yet.

Yatil: Got positive feedback on the github accessibility and the github developers are very responsive, so expect they would fix any issues found.
... Email can also be sent on issues.

AWK: Seems that most of group wants to get away from the issue tracker tool. It sounds like github is easier to use.

MJ: Has successfully created a couple of issues using github, so agrees it is easier to use.

AWK: Josh, Michael, and Andrew will further discuss changing tools.
... This could help us to close issues outside of the meetings.

JN: We'll have to be a bit careful about editorial changes being completely left to the editors.

AWK: If you put the editorial changes in on a github issue, it would give wg members the chance to look at it and respond.
... We could give a certain period of time for people to review the proposed updates for an issue before the changes take effect.

<Zakim> yatil, you wanted to mention archival

LGR: We can then dispose of the comments asynchronously without taking so much meeting time discussing them.

Yatil: EO already uses issues in github and it is working for them.

LGR: We'll definitely have to set definite deadlines for commenting on issues and when an answer is to be completed. We don't want issues to be hanging out there for a long period of time before resolution when there isn't much discussion.
... Doesn't think working group members think technique development is that important.

MJ: Now that time is freed up for technique development, plans to concentrate on it.
... HTML5 and WAI-ARIA techniques needed. WAI-ARIA techniques already added have been well-received.
... Would like to work with some of the experienced technique writer to improve how to go about writing the technique.

LGR: Would like to pair up with someone who can come up with code examples, but is able to write the rest.
... Would be nice to have more complex examples that cover more than one criteria.

JN: These complex examples are more useful for developers. Easy examples are too easy and don't cover all of the complex issues that can come up. Example is tree.
... There are tutorials, but they are often too simple. We don't want to use our time creating simple examples, because developers tend to understand that already. The more complex examples are needed to show how all of the techniques work together.

<AWK> MaryJo: People don't get the concepts from overly simple examples. More complex examples are needed.

<AWK> JN: Need to tie EO Tutorials, WCAG techs, and ARIA best practices together

Yatil: Tutorials are targeting developers of development frameworks so they'll know how to build accessible elements.

JN: Should also tie tutorials with ARIA Authoring Practices Guide.

AWK: If we tie together tutorials and the ARIA Authoring Practices, perhaps there doesn't need to be additional WCAG techniques and we just review what the other groups do.

<David> back...

LGR: Test techniques are often missing from techniques or are not in our format, so perhaps we need to improve in that space.

AWK: There are too many technologies for the WCAG working group to create all of the techniques for.

<AWK> ACTION: AWK to discuss ideas with Josh and Michael (and EO, etc) about the future role of WCAG WG with regard to writing techniques. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action01]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-291 - Discuss ideas with josh and michael (and eo, etc) about the future role of wcag wg with regard to writing techniques. [on Andrew Kirkpatrick - due 2014-11-04].

JN: Perhaps the technology working groups should at least assist in writing accessibility techniques for that technology.

<David> I got dropped??

<AWK> I guess so, David.

<David> back

<David> +1

<AWK> LGR: Would like to orient what we do around understanding the need for future accessibility

MJM: IBM is trying to come up with a holistic approach to design, development and test and then break down responsibilities by role.

LGR: Techniques were written to be examples of each criteria because WCAG was required to have them to publish.

AWK: We need an easier process to submit, review and approve new techniques.

<David> thx

AWK: Maybe it also means that we lower the bar in approval of new techniques.

LGR: Maybe we can have a way for people to submit working code examples from outside the working group and then have the group help write the rest of the technique information and description to complete them.

AWK: This may give us the ability to see the more complex issues that developers are facing in the real world.

LGR: We could keep a listing of known problems with a submitted code example. We can't be responsible for implementing and maintaining a component library.

Review of actions and next steps

<AWK> ACTION: David_MacDonald to check with Sailesh regarding GitHub issues accessibility [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action02]

<trackbot> Error finding 'David_MacDonald'. You can review and register nicknames at <http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/track/users>.

<AWK> ACTION: Andrew to convene with Eric E and others regarding settling on goals and audiences for QRG mod [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action03]

<trackbot> 'Andrew' is an ambiguous username. Please try a different identifier, such as family name or username (e.g., akirkpat2, alahart).

<AWK> ACTION: David_MacDonald to check with Sailesh regarding GitHub issues accessibility [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action04]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-292 - Check with sailesh regarding github issues accessibility [on David MacDonald - due 2014-11-04].

<AWK> ACTION: AWK to convene with Eric E and others regarding settling on goals and audiences for QRG mod [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action05]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-293 - Convene with eric e and others regarding settling on goals and audiences for qrg mod [on Andrew Kirkpatrick - due 2014-11-04].

<David> makes sense

<David> sbsw

<AWK> sxsw

<David> :) funny spelling of by

AWK: Possible places to get WCAG messaging out: CSUN, SXSW, Consumer Electronics. A good session might be a complex examples and walk through it.

Yatil: EO is planning to have reference materials and may do training at HTML5 events.

<AWK> ACTION: AWK to work with chairs and WG to develop plan for stakeholder discussions around future directions (e.g. a talk at CSUN, etc) [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2014/10/27-wai-wcag-minutes.html#action06]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-294 - Work with chairs and wg to develop plan for stakeholder discussions around future directions (e.g. a talk at csun, etc) [on Andrew Kirkpatrick - due 2014-11-04].

<David> So no decisions on CSUN today?

<David> Good bye all

- DRAFT -

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Teleconference

27 Oct 2014

Attendees

Contents

Recap of Sunday meeting

Discuss ways to increase engagement by working group members

Long-term vision / WAI2020

Plan for reaching out to stakeholders

Long-term vision / WAI2020

Plan for reaching out to stakeholders

Review of survey data analysis with EO and WAI-DEV project

QuickRef improvement planning work

Discussion of Institutional Memory project

Discussion of efficiency improvements for Working Group processes

Review of actions and next steps

Summary of Action Items

Scribe.perl diagnostic output