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WAI Education & Outreach Meeting, November 13, 1998

Last updated: December 3, 1998
Scribe: Chuck Letourneau
Posted by: Judy Brewer, WAI EOWG Chair

ATTENDEES

CL: Chuck Letourneau
JB: Judy Brewer
GF: Geoff Freed
WL: William Loughborough
LK: Len Kasday
AC: Alan Cantor

ACTION ITEM SUMMARY

JB: to send pointer to Kitch's upcoming event list on the EO mailing list.
Geoff will investigate the costs involved in preparing these two videos as SMIL presentations on Monday, November 16.
JB: Will create a website with some kind of feedback form (and accessible alternative) for comments on the reference card.
JB: will call Chuck later to discuss what she can have for Kyoto.

1) Updates & outreach

JB: leaving this weekend for Japan in preparation for the W3C Advisory Committee meetings.

WL: notices a general raising of awareness of Web accessibility in the disability community.
JB: agrees, but finds it hard to cite concrete examples.

CL: a couple of meetings scheduled for the end of the month with the people responsible for the Government of Canada's "Common Look and Feel" policy group. They are keen to get going on accessibility.

JB: The reference card has gone to the Printer for a small dry run. Will post the final text of what went to the printer.

JB: the SMIL accessibility note drafted by Maria is being circulated. Geoff: you haven't seen it. She will send it next week. Philip Hoschka sent it out to the SMIL group for comments and received very positive comments.
GF: SMIL enables audio description of video see: www.wgbh.org/ncam and follow links to "Captioning" to find the SMIL example.

JB: will look at Policy stuff over the weekend and hopes some people will comment.

2) RNIB video outlines

- also see previous messages on the EO mailing list

JB: Quite a bit of background information is missing from these outlines: will they be accessible (captioned, described), will they be for broadcast or broadcast and web (i.e. what formats), can they put more emphasis on disability other than visual impairment?

JB: we do not have full control over production since WAI/TIDE is funding only a portion of the costs.

JB: Geoff, please investigate the costs involved in preparing these (one or two) 10 minute videos as SMIL presentations on Monday, November 16.

CL: the second outline is essentially web-free. Let's forget about it. The first one is web specific.
JB: then maybe we should let RNIB make the second one blind specific and lean on them to make the first one cross disability. Then we would only have to make one 10 minute film accessible and web based.
AC: why should RNIB listen to our input?
JB: because WAI/TIDE is helping to fund it.

More specific comments:
Change VIP to PWD
Change MIT to W3C
Change Website Accessibility Initiative to Web...
Include some voice/keyboard navigation for cross disability examples.
Basically rewrite this thing.

3) Dissemination of pilot & final reference card

JB: pilot version is at the printer's - 500 printed up. Daniel had done some reworking of the text based on comments from the PA WG list. Judy will send us the final text. Judy expects to hand out a large number of them next week at the AC meetings and is considering attaching a disclaimer or note reminding people that these are a pilot only and should only be used for providing us with comments.
JB: what will be the next steps?
WL: give a supply of the cards to anyone registered on Kitche's list (i.e. people giving WAI presentations).
JB: good idea, and would be an incentive to speakers.
WL: why not send them to authoring tool manufacturers and get them to include them with their tools.
JB: neat idea, but would make them print their own or include it on the CD-ROM, and would include authoring books.

- feedback, batching, & dissemination strategies
JB: Will create a website with some kind of feedback form (and accessible alternative) for comments on the card.
JB: once we are past the pilot stage, how many should we print up? 5000, 10000?
WL: do 10000 at least. Especially if you put them into conference packages.

4) Last comments on page author curriculum

CL: the slidemaker tool makes supporting multi-layered presentations a nightmare for hyper-linking. For review purposes, look at the master slide sets. Check the http://www.starlingweb.com/wai/gid/index.htm for updates and additions.

JB: will call Chuck later to discuss what she can have for Kyoto.

JB: can we switch to the black and white stylesheet instead?
CL: Yes.

GF: we have to fake examples of how unsupported code will look in the future.
JB: as long as we note that in speakers notes and general disclaimers.

5) Brainstorming comparative data for Web assessment over time

- check out new W3C Web Characterization Activity
JG: attended workshop last week. Lots of academic interest. Would like to make a note to have measurements like: is the web getting more accessible, and so on. Judy read a long list of questions and might want to add them to the minutes. Does the WG think this is a good list?
Yes. But would like to see the list.

6) Next meeting in three weeks (December 4, 1998 8:30 AM EST. )

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