HB: (Harvey Bingham) We want to reach out into the experience, environment, and capabilities of our audience..
GR: (Gregory Rosmaita) The legalistic approach "All citizens shall..." with no teeth is ineffective. We need to help regulators understand. Also a seal of approval needs spot check for confirmation.
DC: (David Clark) Need to make an education system so people can be aware what is accessible. As those standards are changing, how do we continue to educate for that.
(JB) Strategies and approaches: for awareness, for understanding how to do it, and make commitment to do it.
Audiences for awareness, including legislators
Web developments
Related educational opportunities
SS: (Sheela Sethuraman) Additional measures include: audiences, their skills and awarenesses, strategies, internationalization, and categorizations.
JB: Differentiators include
* Kind of tool -- browsers, authoring tools, and page designers/developers.
* Public/private sector,
* Users as nagging groups.
* Other leverage points: media, government.
* W3C Members as large group.
HB: A survey of SGML Open member homepage accessibility, got worse for almost all of the 50 members, in 3 months, even after reminding the members, most of whom I knew personally, about their inaccessibility, based on Bobby check.
DC: (David Clark) In categorization, we may need more subcategorization. When report to corporation education needs differ: some are for technical people, and others for the management whose image is being conveyed.
DK: (David Kozemchak) To some high-level folks, we need a simple rating status.
GR: What does a fixer have to do to repair what they have that
is inaccessibility.
Need way to know where is the "here's how"
JB: What's in a package that you should send to the decision maker: business case, rating of where they are, and what to do (the next steps).
HB: Get feedback when a site is claimed fixed.
PB: (Peter Bosher) We need motivation, build a business case to access people who are using it now.
MR: (Madeleine Rothberg) make a focus.
SL: (Steve Lucas) Work for the European end, identify why something is inaccessible. What effect it has on a speech synthesizer. Show them how to do it.
JB: Demonstration of working speech generation to show the problems. Jutta may be building some of this.
SL: Show with PC and speech system, or video of the problem.
DC: Get to the decision maker, and consider the legal requirements.
JB: Two sets in plan now: to support education and outreach, and to
identify support materials.
There is a proposed schedule for first 6 months.
JB: Demonstrations, and video sets.
HB: The tools need to be focused to start where the audience is coming from to where we'd like to have them.
WL: (William Loughborough) Add major endorsements from champions, soundbites from bigshots. Compile these and bring them forward.
JB: Categorize these "Harper's statistics" to provide soundbites.
CL: (Chuck Letourneau) Hard to learn the pressure points who will take effective actions.
JB: Soon a draft of what WAI is doing. Pointers for what staff can use to present.
WL: The Heuman paper wasn't on the WAI site.
JB: Need speakers notes so others can share the common materials.
DC: Need a database of changes that have been done to show that competitors have already done work.
JB: Not sure that can be done since some work is private. Other suggestions?
HB What works for GV? He does the most presentations.
GV: If you have been given good overheads and sound like you know what your are talking about but when someone has a question you give an answer but are wrong, you sound too authoritative. Presenters need enough expertise before being given these materials.
JB What about a train the trainer program? A good list of deliverables could lead to disaster in the wrong hands.
DC: What is the goal of the group?
JB: Missions statement of group restated.
GV: train the trainer is good if you have people who want to be trained. This usually works if people can go out and be paid for the work. May not work for advocacy where people won't be paid. Instead present it as a chance for trainers to meet to share notes and strategies, since these people already think they are giving this kinds of talks. May also be useful to do a videotape to give out , and have consumers. Play the tape and have the consumers talk.
CL: Comment on government strategies. Missed this.
KS: Translation so that people will have a clue. Web is integrating with TV. TV executives will want plain argument, not technical detail. Need to translate this information so importance is understood outside the traditional web community.
JB: This sounds like marketing and shaping the message. That may be hard to make progress on here. As we develop materials we'll need to massage them to present a sophisticated message to different audiences.
JL: This is not a new problem -- awareness of inexperienced people. It depends on who tells it. We are not quite sure how to bring this message. Where could we learn better how to do this? We are not progressing in reaching different types of organizations and people.
JB: This may not be a block. I think of the ADA monitors program with training so that people could get the message out at the grass-roots level.
WL: This is a civil rights movement and change is occurring faster than we might expect. We should be hopeful and keep on keeping on.
JA: Int'l Interactive Communications Society. They do everything -- instructional and multimedia and web design.
KS: Web sites are vanity spots so one strategy they use is two way links. Get dissemination points to include links back to you. In Europe there is the European forum on Disability. Lots of fragmentation among different groups, especially blindness.
ST: Has a mailing list to target every school and University in the UK. There are links but they are largely with the blind community or people they do business with, including commercial links.
JL: There are newsgroups and BBSs in Europe that are still growing. Popularity of Internet is low because people assume it is inaccessible.
MN: Current situation in Japan is that many individuals or groups show interest in internet and our activities, but it is not in one place where we could have discussion. He is looking at the WAI to bring those people into one place. Also needs work elsewhere in Asia.
JB: Designers. Does the Guild do that?
KyB: Don't rely only on the Guild. Some pages have "About how this page is accessible" which is a good awareness and education piece.
JA: Microsoft developer center?
JB: Yes, and also Netscape may do this.
WL: Netscape code will be out. Some groups making new versions do know about accessibility this.
DC: Publishers also. SPA.
MR: and AAP
JB: need contacts there.
SL: has a good contact at SPA.
ST: Ads on the search engines.
JB: Yes, may be getting a commitment soon.
Someone: also pointers to us from search engines.
JL: Articles for most popular magazines?
JB: In Nov we discussed this. Want to get discussions of HTML 4.0 in texts that are on bookstore shelves. But books were already in final stages. Instead, a group of volunteers created some curriculum and they didn't do it, so we subcontracted a write up for comments. This became the 4 page explanation. This still isn't exactly right. Almost every book has a web site, though, so we will follow up on getting this info to those book authors so they can add a chapter on their site.
JL: Yes, but also magazines.
JB: Magazine stuff is going forward and will be added to our list.
JL: Biggest magazines are translated to other languages, which helps us a lot.
CL: How do we reach business networks? In Canada, access in general has benefited from targeting industry associations, for example banking association to provide requirements to members. Also Telecom companies.
WL: trade associations advise members on "make your own web site". Also small businesses often use advisors to help with e-commerce sites.
JB: Yes, SBA is interested in partnering with us. Who is equivalent in other countries?
SL: BBB, direct marketing associations. Affiliate organizations create forms that allow small businesses onto the web.
SS: Don't forget the university classes as an audience.
Bill: don't forget CNN.com and other major business wires
DC: What about InterNIC?
JB: some interest, not sure how strong. Some involvement at W3C.
ST: 2 thoughts. 1) Credit agencies 2) Financial Times has FT Profiles. Research Database on key contacts and profiles. Addresses etc.
JB: Good brainstorming. Let's talk about expectations. We can get rough materials quickly for audiences we have interactive contact with. Other audiences we may need to have a very well polished approach. In terms of collection activities, two things are 1) pulling together existing materials. Who has what? 2) What types of surveys of current level of web accessibility. Government tracking?
MR: WGBH has how to use our page guidelines (turning off images, changing colors)
WL: Brilliant tutorial from Ree Dolloff
CL: Government of Canada Internet guide includes SB case. Lots of why and wherefores. Why part of general presentation and style. He can provide it when he finishes doing it.
GV: Case studies available from Trace.
CL: GV has a wonderful presentaiton on the business case.
JB: Next question. Are you aware of strategies for current assessment of the accessibility of the web?
GV: Aim Bobby at the web?
JB: No, simpler than that.
DC: Rick of the Millenium 3 Foundation wants to tie this to PICS.
JB: Maybe also at NIST. Will collect this.
WL: AltaVista?
JB: They have good info on which browsers are in use.
WL: Yes, but they are searching the whole web all the time. They could point a more sophisticated Bobby at it. That's what they do.
March 98: Convene EOWG, review plan and deliverables. Compile dissemination points. Release HTML 4.0 info.
Today we should determine who will participate actively and pick telephone conference time. Dissemination points within the month. HTML 4.0 info in progress. Will be out for WG comment next week.
April: release technical FAQ on CSS2. (WAI is sharing a technical writer who is working on this.) Release code samples for page author guidelines on HTML 4.0. (Follow up to Page Author Guidelines) Compile existing materials and event opportunities.
DC: Are materials re-publishable?
JB: W3C materials are copyrighted. But we can probably republish with attribution. We need a clear policy on this. Translations are also an issue. Original language is most authoritative, but other translations may be somewhat authoritative.
DC: This would be a good resource for our Bobby work.
KS: I'll deal with policy on republishing.
WL: GNU copyright is relevant?
JB: Code samples?
JL: Is there a page now from EOWG for outside use with pointers for people to link to?
JB: No, but that is a key thing we need to do with our site. We have a mini list of resources, then we have a WAI references page that needs updating. Adding resources page will be done.
WL: Is this the FAQ?
JB: No, that will be technical materials on each area we work on. But we could have an EO FAQ, or we could just have a good page with a polished list of materials that is the one we encourage people to link to for info, rather than the main WAI project page.
JL: A version of the briefing package with this?
JB: Original package can't change, but there is a flyer with a one-page description that will be revised as a promotional material.
JB: Key opportunities where we should have a presence like major computer
and disability conferences, government events? Need an outreach calendar...
ST: Has an exhibitions office
JA: Disabilities organizations have this.
JB: Need this for outside US.
JA: Also K12 and university lists. Gov tech conference
WL: Members of the Consortium go to lots of these things. Can they carry our message and coordinate with you.
JB: Business case will be well used. S. Lukas gave some info on what is needed. To be pulled together for May. We may have a writer lined up for that.
KS: is working on difference between epidemiology rather than functional capability. Will provide that.
JB: Has other contributors for demographics. Need some creative work on business end.
DC: When will HTML 4.0 be implemented in browsers?
JB: Depends on company. Ask your favorite browser. We have dialog with major and niche browser companies. Can't focus on this now. Depends on where they are in versioning. Some tried to get to market with an implementation before it was finalized. But Accessibility was not in yet then, so we are pushing and getting unclear answers.
DC: Asked because in terms of work plan we may want deliverables to match needs. Business case is more general and more pertinent to this issue, while FAQs are more useful once specifications are out there.
JB: Mixed opinions on that. Is talking to them about implementation schedule, and they want the technical FAQ today. Different people are doing these so they may not compete for resources. Could do BC sooner without bouncing FAQs. Last few minutes, let's get parting thoughts on priorities and continuing to meet.
CL: as co-chair of page author GL, concerned about rushing out code samples when no browsers can show how these will really look with browsers and screen readers. No way to see how it will really work yet.
JB: Some companies comment that they can't implement LongDesc. No guidance on the implementation. This goes back to Browser group.
GV: Suggests right click or selecting a link.
JB: Context here is that these questions should come to the WAI so we can give good perspective.
WL: We are actually ahead in CSS2 though behind elsewhere. Take advantage of this rather than bemoaning it.
DC: Education on required vs. recommended is needed.
JB: May be a browser group question, but we'll need to publicize it.
DC: Also RC group. Businesses say "What's the bottom line? What do I really have to do?"
JB: this is part of shaping our message.
KS: Explicit approach needed on EU paper on regulatory implications of convergence of telecommunications and computing. Entertainment applications.
JB: Some have answered calls for participation already. Usually we will cover fewer topics than today. Who would like to continue to participate? There will be bi-weekly to monthly meetings and fair amount of mailing list traffic. Who has signed up? JA, KyB ST, SL, MN, WL, SS, GF, CL, KC, PB
Time to meet across continents? 8 am East Coast? Or rotating meetings at different time slots that handle two continents and people come when they can? Need some comments on this on the list.
SS: Which continents?
JB: Netherlands and UK, every time zone in US, Tokyo, Canada. No Australia.
Wrap up. Reminder about evening reception, breakfast at 8:30 am, talking
at 9 am.
WAI Education and Outreach Face-to-Face 1998 March 21
Notes by Harvey Bingham and Madeleine Rothberg