W3C logo Web  Accessibility Initiative (WAI) logo

WAI UA Telecon for November 4th, 1998


Chair: Jon Gunderson
Date: Wednesday, November 4th
Time: 12:00 noon to1:00 pm Eastern Standard Time
Call-in: (+1) 617/258-7910


Agenda

Review current guidelines

Discuss coordination of contribution of content to the guidelines

Determine if a face-to-face meeting is needed in December


Attendance

Ian Jacobs

Kathy Hewitt

Daniel Dardailler

Jon Gunderson (chair)

Charles McCathieNeville

Wilson Craig

Earl Harrison

Jim Allan

Scott Leubking


Action Items and Conclusions

Scott Leubking

  1. Will contact berkley disability group on reviewing the guidelines
  2. Will try to contact deaf-blind group in seattle on reviewing the guidelines

Jon Gunderson

  1. Send out announcement on possible face to face meeting in december
  2. Send out announcement on determining which items are required for direct implmentation in any UA
  3. Coordinate the submission of content to techniques document

Discussion issues for the list

  1. Defining a model to talk about 3rd pary assistive technology and user agent technology
  2. Developing a consensus on determining direct implementation language and markup for each technique
  3. Review guidelines and techniques for missing or incomplete information
  4. Recruiting reviewers from a wide range of disability persepctive

Minutes

DD: I have looked at priorities

Direct vs. 3rd party assistive technology is an important issue

JG: What do you think about format?

DD: They are detailed, covers alot of issues and not exactly what I had invisioned but they are usable

Abstract guidelines do not carry priorities, talked to Ian

IJ: Guidelines are not a checklist item, they have techniques related to them that people can check off

JA: Some guidelines still have priorities

IJ: Guidelines can be still be priorities since some guidelines may be more important than othter guidelines

DD: 4.1 has one and other guidelines do not

IJ: We need to establish priorities of other guidelines

DD: are we going to remove other priorities for guidelines

IJ: We could, or we could just know that priorities are different between guidelines and techniques

The main question is knowing what is the threshold for complying to a guideline

How many prioroty one techniques do you need to satisfied for satisfying a guideline

KH: Well I like the way it is structured, can take to developers and they can use them

Techniques are fully listed out

IJ: One attempt in the current editing pass is to limit the number og guidelines, there are currently 20 guidelines and techniques are grouped under the guidelines

Does the document make the accessibility information visionary

The techniques document tries to serve both a users perspective and developers view

KH: What about duplications, I noticed in one of the techniques document that there was a 4.2 techniques for other types of documents

IJ: Let me look at the same place, what section

KH: Looking at section 4.2.13 and 6.2

IJ: 4.2.13 is in larger context than just NOSCRIPT and 6.2 says to implement NOSCRIPT

IJ: One is slightly more abstract and the other concrete

JG: This talks about a general implementation issue and the other is specific

CM: Dependent vs. dependent user agents not clear

Like a plug is that a dependent or independent user agent

DD: Do plugins have total control over rendering

One reference to dependent uiser agents

JG: 3 groups of browsers types ....

KH: What about Home Page reader

DD: it is not a dependent user agent, it is not dependent

/* Jon talked about the issues related to diect and 3rd party asssitive technology */

DD: Do we have a definition for dependent and independent user agent

IJ: Not really

CM: Is real audio user agent a dependent user agent

Do we need to have the discussion

I don't see how the definition helps

DD: I think we do, especially for other technologies like XML

We need to underwstand what these terms means

Then we can decide about whether they should be applied to the guidelines

pwWebSpeak relies on MSHTML control for parsing

JG: That sounds like a technology issue

DD: New generation of web tools for building applications

Issue of user agent that are mainstream and that are not specialized, they will be used by third part assistive technology

Those two are different axis

What about table linearization and that we split it into a tree view. Remove table markup

SL: Table linearization is simpler

DD: Linearization should

SL: Whether the user agent talks

KH: Why is table linearization then a requirement

SL: The reason to put table linearization in mainstream browser. I am looking at the benefits for the amount of time. It is very straight forward.

KH: What is the benefit to the mainstream user. I am not looking at the level of effort.

SL: I do believe in the cost benefit analysis, by having it in a central location. People can change assitive technology and without needing learn to learn new techniques. Speech is more complex and the cost is high.

KH: Yes, I don't agree with table linearization.

SL: Table linearization is saving man hours for assistive technology vendors

KH: I have the same issue related to mainstream browser to try to simplify the mainstream browser for the general user population. As you ask me to add more features, the browser becomes more complex.

DD: Some screen readers will not use DOM they will just use screen rendering. So if third party assistive is not very smart, it will not be able to provide good information.

SL: The MSAA is not always good. Since IE will be developed for mac or UNIX environment and will not have MSAA.

DD: How do you feel about this issue?

KH: You can extend this model to wordprocessing, is this a wish list.

If I don't have this is the browser is the browser inaccessible? This ahould be the question for priority 1 items

We provide support through accessibility APIs and this is where we are putting our effort

SL: Is this really providing access? Are they providing very good access?

DD: What is the extend of the problem. If it is a small set of problems, then it is not important.

SL: I think we need to look at 3rd party assistive technology will need to look at a range of products. We need to look at the context. I don't see it as a viable approach.

KH: That's why MSAA is supported in IE and MS Office.

DD: MSAA is every where and additional support within for accessibility. Does a user agent need to support table linearization if 3rd party will be doing it?

JG: Do we want to...

SL: Some people have specialized needs. In addition there are large groups of people that benefit from certain techniques.

WC: One thing that developers need to know about control

KH: This is the issue of the face-to-face. There is a big gaping hole, if you go through our document object model. We need to spell out what should be done directly. Otherwise there will be holes in the implementation of the guidelines.

SL: Most companies will do the absolute minimum.

JG: I think we will need another face-to-face meeting. Who can come?

SL: Resource issue

DD: Dates are open

Who would some from the current call:

KH, IJ, DD, JG,


Copyright  ©  1998 W3C (MIT, INRIA, Keio ), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply. Your interactions with this site are in accordance with our public and Member privacy statements.