HB: Looking at "chunking ideas". Will have summary of them soon.
CR: New version of A-Prompt is available at web site. Please send comments to Chris.
WL: Notices more acceptance of idea that accessibility becomes usability. Is happy that is WAI looking at usability in general.
LK: Add to agenda for today: "Usability on the web – what do we do now in terms of usability and accessibility".
LK: Continuing to work on WAVE. New version in Alpha that has FRAMES and more checks.
BM: Noted that AERT 4.2 technique (abbrev/acronym) is backward.
CR: Will fix 4.2.
BM: New Bobby 3.2 has higher speed, better response time, fewer hangs
WL: What about "hat overload"?
BM: Using more question marks and fewer hats. It emphasizes priority 1 items. Priority 2 not called out in original page. Considering using hats with ‘2’ but not sure.
MC: Hats with wheel chairs are auto detect where bobby is most useful. We will do a 3.3 release which will have more features and should be released in a couple of months.
WL: Bobby has a problem that is shows problems with things that are not there. Author did not insert something yet gets flagged as being there.
BM: Yes but identifies things in doc even if author did not put them there. Example: Front Page will insert script and Bobby will flag it. We're trying to update error messages to fix this.
WL: Bobby must be aware of constantly pointing out problems. Problems will then get ignored.
BM: Yes, people will get complacent with warnings. New download can turn off some checks – ASCII art, scripts etc. Now gives better report. Web site version however can only filter by priority.
MC: Current Bobby can filter only by level of support. Can turn off ‘ask once’ questions
LK: Bobby needs global warning to check all Alt text.
BM: Considering for version 4 (maybe online version).
LK: What about a check for Longdesc for every image? What about a review of all the Alt text for all images?
MC: Bobby does have check for long Alt.
BM: Bobby does not have check for short Alt or "".
LK: Can site have incorrect ALT and still pass Bobby? (because Bobby does not ask for manual check)
MC: yes
MC: Large sites may have auto generated Alt. User of Bobby for large sites should look for this.
LK: Another problem is that site has buttons, all with same Alt text generated by person. Copy/paste will do this.
MC: Bobby checks every link must have different link text. Will look into adding check for images with same Alt link text.
MC: Bobby 3.X not doing interactive – will be in version 4 if demand by consumers. Trying to keep number of manual checks down in Bobby.
<Discussion regarding multiple images with same Alt text and same images with different Alt text.>
LK: Should these checks be in ERT?
BM: ERT technique 1.1 states "check for 2 images (different source) with same Alt".
CR: Chris will bring discussion to list and update ERT if necessary.
BM: What about image with large file size that has small Alt (or no Alt) – Should we ask user if this Alt text is sufficient?
<discussion> NO, file size not appropriate judgement.
LK: Should we check, using OCR, if image has text? How can user judge if image is complex? Is complex a good word?
WL: semantics
LK: What about different wording?
WL: Put onus on author to check.
BM: Do what we can we tools but author must have final say.
WL: Noticed that Bobby has made significant changes to web pages <congratulations>.
LK: More people are aware of Bobby than WAI priority guidelines.
BM: CAST has been working on a new logo - not so cartoonish.
LK: Will CAST use a logo that says "WAI approved as tested by Bobby"?
MC: Yes/no. Bobby version 4 has 3 logos - correspond to WAI priority level. Not sure if this is OK with W3C/WAI
LK: Would have to check with W3C for approval.
MC: Just a test idea (WAI/Bobby logo), not sure if it will be final.
LK: ER issue – should there be an official WAI logo with verification? Is there a standard method of adding logo?
MC: Similar to an RDF statement.
LK: Yes, like "who says". It would take an issue out of branding. Comments?
WL: Claim of conformance is on author and support mechanism. Can't be cleared. Just author's claim. Logo will never be like crash testing (of automobiles).
LK: My guess is that people have not used the Bobby logo when they haven't really tested with Bobby.
MC: We've seen sites that have logo but doesn't look like tested with Bobby!
WL: Good faith on author. Logo may make sites look like race car (covered in logos).
CR: New A-Prompt has been testing WAI/A-Prompt combined logo. Uses 1 logo instead of 2. It's a good idea to promote WAI and, of course, product want's own logo.
LK: What if author uses the logo while site is not checked/accessible?
CR: What has CAST seen regarding Bobby logo usage?
MC: We do not monitor logo - says so on our site. Solution is to monitor logo usage but we don't have resources.
WL: Don't fix until more broke. People using logo have a conscience so they should have done checks. Not a big problem.
LK: People don't use it unknowingly.
CR: CAST could check sites?
LK: Tracking concerns. If logos were separate it would not make WAI responsible. Else get into speedway look.
LK: Ambivalent about combined logos. Like to see logo but could be problems with misuse.
CR: take to W3C?
LK: Will ask WAI/W3C about appropriate use of WAI logo for tools.
CR: Interim Longdesc use - D link of image anchor use?
LK: Like D link.
DB: How is longdesc used?
MC: IBM Homepage reader supports Longdesc but is a little confusing. Leave image alone - don't use as link to longdesc.
WL: D link has some legs under it.
MC: Pressure browsers to implement longdesc use. Opera does not support longdesc?
CR: Appears that 'D' link is solution. I'll talk to Gregory R. as he liked image link to Longdesc.
LK: Usability and accessibility - what concerns our group?
MC: Bad usability affects accessibility.
WL: Our charter is for disabled but we can examine usability.
DB: I thought we were doing accessibility. Should not branch out to usability. What is our focus?
MC: If we are aware of usability then it will help
DB: Make usability experts aware of accessibility. Do not make us more aware of usability.
WL: We should promote accessibility more on usability lists.
DB: good
WL: What about at Microsoft?
DB: Usability/accessibility groups often intertwine.
WL: At W3C they know they will hear from WAI so usability groups are affected.
CR: Not sure how much usability we should check. What about long download for large images - is that accessibility?
WL: yes.
LK: Are not all usability problems cognitive issues (therefore accessibility)?
MC: ...hard time defining disability.
LK: Relative in our culture.
MC: Some countries have many disabilities – poor health care.
WL: Wheel chair athletes are superior after 800 meters.
LK: All disability issues relate to accessibility.
WL: Usability = accessibility. And market driven. People surf somewhere else if page downloads slow. Opposite of curb cut.
LK: Too many clicks is bad usability and accessibility.
<Suggestion to take discussion to list. Agreed.>
WL: Make sure to add ‘quality' as well as quantity (e.g. increase number and quality of tools). Make sure tools themselves are accessible should be in charter.
LK: It is in mission statement of draft charter.
WL: It should also be in document sections 8.7 & 8.8 and should specify clearly.
WL: Section 9 should specify joint meetings.
LK: Should ERT address quality?
WL: Review section has suffered. Not big issue. More/better also means more accessible to users.
LK: We should review deliverables of charter.
WL: (to DB) Could internal test suites from Microsoft could be shared?
DB: We have test suites for applications but not web sites. Trying to formalize and tracking results but not ready yet.
WL: (to DB) What about tests for usability issues?
DB: We have tests for how Front Page writes to HTML. FrontPage is much improved on not changing HTML (including hand-coding), but that certainly some people might be unaware of exactly what it is writing unless they look at the code.
LK: What about CAST?
MC: We don't have formalized test suite but would like to have one. For testing we check out on some large sites that we assume to have problems and see if Bobby finds them. We use our own site for an example of a good site to see what Bobby says. We also test random URLs too.
Monday July 24, 11 a.m.
July 17, 2000Chris Ridpath