Meeting minutes
<janina> Date 22 May 2023
Murathan: I began this journey by designing type faces
… they were ornamental, and not designed for legibility
janina: Please present+ yourself
No call next Monday--U.S. Memorial Day
Introductions (as needed)
Kate's Suggestions -- https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-a11yedge/2023May/0004.html
Kate: The issues of settings and preferences of the user being honored at the edge
… in proximity to that person, we have the technologies that the person is using
… and then the content being presented at the edge
… along with the CDN and cloud services that are further away
… would like human centered principles
… before we introduce the technology we should assert the human principles
Shari: When you're designing for the Edge, you're designing for everybody
Kate: Considering situational and temporary disabilities, it does end up involving everybody
Kate: Privacy, time efficiency and noise characterizes what we are considering when we consider accessibility
… and what is lost in the failure
… Usability is fundamental. Well structured content is parseable visually, by assistive tech, and is also more discoverable by search engines
./me Lionel says +1 to Kate
Shari: Agree on the need to address accessibility at the base
janina: 'Curb cut' types of accomodation are great and most likely to benefit people who become disabled in some way (as is inevitable to anyone who lives long enough)
… compare this with Braille, or Screen readers
… people starting to lose their vision are not told to learn braille right away, you start with other accomodations
… since language acquisition can be quite challenging, particularly later in life
… 100% agree that something can be technically accessible, yet be nearly complete unusable
… there's an example I just used today that required use of an on-screen keyboard to type a password. It likely passes WCAG 2.0, but is so difficult to use!
Shari: +1 to 'don't need a wheelchair to appreciate the curb cut effect'
janina: We don't want to 'boil the ocean' in this document.
… We may be able to reference existing work rather than rewrite things, which we then might get slightly wrong
… We may prefer to point to (1) here's why accessibility matters
… (2) here's why you should care
Shari: Propose making a reference section as a starting point, with the definitions.
janina: There is a W3C pattern where we put reference sections with definitions at the bottom.
Improving Legibility of User Interfaces for Low Vision Conditions with a Crowdsource Platform
mblkt: Typefaces have different aspects like letter weight, text height, spacing
… I looked at how these elements affect the legibility, aesthetics and individual perception
… I found some fonts made to enhance some aspects like letter recognition
… context though remains very important
… and typeface alone does not determine legibility
… I considered how the background, screen effects, etc affect legibility
… By chance I was playing, on a game console, an older game that did not work as well
… and a community provided a control scheme that made the old game playable on the newer console
… this inspired me to think, perhaps a similar pattern could be applied to websites
… perhaps we could allow people to invent modifications that work for them
… they could share it, and crowd source accessibility accomodations
… I ran into the discussion regarding accessibility overlays and whether they satisfy legal requirements
… I saw their concern, particularly in the USA and Canada where there are regulatory requirements
Shari: There is an issue when overlays are used as a 'cop-out'
… you can do usability testing rather than focus groups
… and watch out for duplicate content delivery challenges, for example if multiple CSS style sheets are made available
janina: Technology in and of itself does not involve the 'cop-out', it's how you use it
… I'd like to address crowd sourcing, pros and cons
… starting with a 'con' -- crowd sourcing of image alts was discussed in W3C space and consensus ruled it out
… on the 'pro' side was boookshare.org, scans of books by crowd sourcing was a big success
Lionel: I invite Murathan to look closely at the type face oriented capabilities in the overlay capabilities document
mblkt: Sounds good
Shari: Context is so important.
janina: Users should be able to swap typefaces as they wish
Lionel: Reviewed the document and showed where fonts are discussed
Shari: Redundancy is often desired, as it can ensure accessibility
janina: We are heading for a principle of 'configure once, deploy everywhere', we think DIDs and VCs can support this
… It's OK to repeat things, as some paragraphs like this bear repeating, as people might dip in and out
Shari: redundancy supports scanning as well, as opposed to careful reading.
mblkt: Link to my thesis, https://