Meeting minutes
<wendyreid> date: 2023-12-11
wendyreid: Can we quickly go over what we did while I was gone?
Gregorio: I can recount a bit. In two meetings we mainly spoke about the document and how it is written. We didn't take any edits because we wanted feedback from you.
Gregorio: In the last meeting we talked about future fixed layouts projects...
first thing, we looked at the legibility part, and we liked the approach. One suggestion...
reorganize the section on groups of WCAG success criteria...
the other thing we discussed was which level of WCAG to use, and decided on WCAG A+
Gregorio: and mentioning AA but adding [sentancehere] ...
we discussed how difficult it might be for a creator without code experience to achieve these goals...
<shadi> present
<shadi> +
we found a wiki from the WCAG working group that defines complexity level with a yes or no
we know that telling people something that can't be achieved is unhelpful...
we discussed the section of font faces and font families, though this isn't a requirement for accessibility but may be of interest...
so we agreed to mention it...
we discussed the use of multiple spans, and whether these are disruptive to assistive technologies...
it depends on the settings but default settings tend to work...
there are problems with text to speech but this is not a code issue...
using a lot of spans isn't a good code practice but can cause problems when fonts or sizes or changed...
specific fonts embedded in fxl that are not embedded can cause readability problems...
some of our comments at the beginning of the document are more about html...
susan would like to help with the media section...
*someone is helping with the readability section
wendreid: We're going to run into this alot, this problem with code experience...
we're talking about alot that is technical...
how the content is coded and structured, you gotta know html...
if you don't you can make a perfect design that isn't acceptable
SimonPRH: one of the most fundamental things, like reading order, is a challenge to communicate to a supplier
wendyreid: the outsourcing firms should know better, and this might be a culture change
SimonPRH: its not always clear in a fxl layout what the reading order should be. It should be incumbent on the publisher to make this clear
Gregorio: I didn't change the document, but I could help after Christmas
wendyreid: let me pull out all the success criteria, and then I can see what we need to do
gregorio: our idea was not to use a single success criteria, but 4 or 5 criteria
wendyreid: about the legibility section, should we pull that out so it is clear that this isn't WCAG?
circularken: this is a good solution for the font section, to make it clear that this is just good practice and not WCAG
gregorio: and to make it clear that it is different than html and fonts on the web
wendyreid: I realized that a lot of the WCAG material is design-related but written from a technical point of view...
WCAG seems to have a bias toward people with vision issues...
I see you discussed future changeability...
the reading systems playing with this are very niche with limited catalogs...
gregorio: we should invite the French company that has an interesting approach to children's publications, to come speak to us
wendyreid: 5+ years ago we talked about what responsive ebook design looks like...
maybe we should revive that...
what can we tell publishers that they can do, how to make your content look the way you want it to and still be accessible
wendyreid: Sometimes spans are used letter by letter especially in children's books where special type treatments are used
SimonPRH: should we tell people to use images with alt text in those cases?
wendyreid: I'll get the names of those companies and reach out to them and see what they can do...
if it is sustainable
circularken: my suggestion of discarding positional information withing spans and relying on heirachy will let us create accessible documents
circularken: there is a question about section markers/tags? Should we not have them in fxl? Should we put tags on something other than sections?
gregorio: I remember an aria attribute that will specify that an attribute continues
circularken: like flow to?
wendyreid: Have we gotten any feedback about how impactful some of the properties are to the UX?
gregorio: in Daisy we did some tests with combinations of assisted techs and browsers...
in Chrome, all the roles are spoken out, and in some other tech stacks...
Apple we reached out to the aria working group to implement epub aria roles in Safari
charles: We met with Apple and James Craig, they wanted to adjust the specification in response...
and then be able to test it as well...
we picked the most important aria roles and then classifield them...
they agreed to add them to the Apple API...
he was concerned about translation issues and are taking a slower approach. Some progress was made over the last year.
wendyreid: I'm curious if we've done user testing to make sure section flows over multiple page documents...
are we getting feedback from users that this is something they want...
is this repetitve since reading systems already do some of this...
charlesL3: I don't think we've done any testing we've assumed that a screen reader jumps somewhere and you don't necessarily know where you are...
<Bill_Kasdorf> It would be nice to have "begin chapter" and "end chapter" semantics.
it might be helpful to have the section announced...
wendyreid: we built that into our reading system...
CharlesL3: if you're reading along in a chapter, its different than jumping to a new chapter...
but you don't want the chapter repeated for every html page...
wendyreid: we decided that in ereading, when you jump to a specific page, you will want to know what chapter you're in...
you may not want to hear it everytime the page turns
CircularKen: Should we not use section markers to indicate aria roles?
wendyreid: In your case I think it could go on any html element...
the bigger thing is testing that the flow to or continuous feature works, and if it is useful to the reader
SimonPRH: Is this meeting still happening next week, but not the meeting on Christmas Day
there will not be a meeting Jan 1, we will reconvene Jan 8
CircularKen: If anyone has any information if flow-through is supported that would be helpful
CircularKen: is this an open community group?
wendyreid: we have an open policy, you don't need to be a member of W3C though you will need an account...
you do not need a corporate sponsor...
<wendyreid> sue-neu: After Gregorio talked me through GH, I took a stab at writing the media section, took things from other areas like WCAG
<wendyreid> ... just working on a draft
<wendyreid> ... right now I don't know what the next step is
sue-neu: I made a stab at the media section...
wendyreid: let's talk outside the meeting to figure out next steps
CharlesL_3: what is our timeline?
wendyreid: I was hoping for the end of the year, but we won't make that...
we are in good shape...
the EU commission has pushed us off, and will not be meeting with us by the end of the year...
It would be nice if we have this document ready when they are ready to meet with us...
gautierchomel: I will be able to contribute in early January I'd like to discuss a few points with you...
wendyreid: If we are lucky we will be able to share this a the accessible ebook summit
wendyreid: I will reach out to Sue and Gautier about contributing and send out invites for January