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UA Guidelines
June 2, 1998
1pm EST
(617) 258-7910
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Chair: Jon
Scribe: Ian

Present:

Ian
Marja
Wendy Chisolm
Joe 
Kitch Barnicle
Kathy Hewitt
Jon
Daniel Dardailler
Jim Allen
Chuck Opperman

AGENDA:

 1) Review priorities
 2) Discuss some issues and wording. 
 3) Reduce number of "Priority I" guidelines. (Others demoted
    to Priority II level.


Check out:
 - New draft of UA guideilnes, based on 
   comments and feedback.
 - See issues list, linked from [1]
 - See history of changes, linked from [1]

---------------
Priority levels
---------------

Kathy: Certain guidelines, when implemented, make others less
  important. Trickle-down effect.

DD: (On definition of priorities). 
    (On definition of focus).

  /* Comments already taken into 

DD: Make sure to mention how focus is moved.

DD: In 2.3, there is a guideline-like sentence "User should..."
  perhaps move to definition section.

3.1: Control over browser defaults and author styles.
 - Combine all the similar ones (colors, etc.) and allow the
   user to override author and default values.
 - Remove 3.1.3
 - 3.1.6: Priority III. ALso, change current to user-defined.
 - 3.1.7: Discussion of whether section on external file belongs
    here. Link to CSS section?

3.2: 
  - Problem of file names used as alt text. Might give new
    authors the wrong impression, that file names should be alt
    text. Also, gives very little extra information. Also, the
    file name is available from other sources (e.g., DOM, Win95
    properties). Make the file name available (e.g., through
    OS), but don't make it the alt text.

       - In general: recommend that UAs give users
         access to file and useful attribute values.

    DD: Perhaps should be on demand. If no "alt" text specified,
     allow user to ask for the information (e.g., file name),
     but, e.g., prefixed with "File:".

     - If browser allowed to insert alt text, authors will be
       lazy and expect UAs to do it for them.

     - If no alt text, specified, use "Image".

     - What does Webspeak do? (They call it an image without
         captions).

     - What does Lynx do? (two options: file name or "Image"
         or "Link" or "Inline").

     - In IE + Winvision 97, depends on how you're 
       navigating (horizontally:
       "Image"; vertically: "Link"; tabbing...)

    (No resolution about what to do when no alt text specified).

      - DD: When an IMG is in a link and has no alt
         test specified, get information from the target
         anchor (performance cost, so on user demand only).

  - "tool tip": not mandatory. Rephrase.

 /* Chuck Comment: Who are these guidelines for? Big browsers or
   small browsers? Perhaps priorities vary bewteen mainstream
   vs. specific browsers. Since specific browsers will generally
   do "the right thing", suspect that guidelines are for mainstream
   browsers who need help understanding the accessibility issues */

  Jon: Priority I for mainstream, Priority II/III for all browsers.

 
   Marja: Also a time element to priorities (now, later, even later).
   

  - Issue of OBJECT: either content or attribute value (either-or).
    Some users want both. Why no "longdesc" attribute for
    OBJECT? Ian: There is a "title" attribute. (In MS IE, "title"
    currently available through object model and mouse hover, not
    keyboard). (Note, "alt" is less important than "longdesc" since
    OBJECT semantics cover "alt"). 
    DD: I think there was no need for longdesc since you could put
        a D-link in the content. (Wendy: This is the direction
        the PAGEAUTH guidelines are taking as well).

   - Give users the ability to turn on and off D-links.

   /* Ian and Daniel to Wendy: Use "rel" attribute to denote
      "D-link". To be pursued. */
         
  3.2.5: Can't just turn off hard-coded all D-links since some
    elements don't have longdesc attributes.

3.3: Add audio

  Marja: Where is the audio information?

  Jon: Depends on format. (E.g., SMIL, quicktime)

  DD: Should guidelines be media-dependent? If a UA doesn't support
      audio, should it still be required to access e.g., the caption
      or transcript?

   Should plugins have this capability (getting the text description)?

  Resolved: For now, 3.3.1, 3.3.2 -> Priority II.

3.5.2: DD: Text-only means "one dimensional", so frames and tables
       not included. Discussed serialization (tables, frames).

   Granularity of control (turn off images, applets, etc.) depends
   on browser.

Section 4: 
  DD: Proposes that these are all priority II.
  
  Others feel that focus is more important than that.

  Add something about "focus memory" (you leave one view, return,
  and find your previous focus).


/* Is there going to be a player guidelines? Yes. */

Discussion of focus/view: When you change the view, focus
  follows next available active element (link, dlink, form control).
  Check out how Opera behaves.

Next telecom: (Chuck has difficulties with Tuesday).
    Marja: Thursdays are bad.
    
 Proposed:  Fridays at 1pm. 


Wendy: Make sure that "alt" text replaces the function
of the image (see PAGEAUTH appendix).

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA