Thread Subject: Re: Merging Web and Software and what is Webcontent?

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From: Sean Hayes
Date: Wed, Jul 25 2007 5:30 AM

I also cannot be on the call today.

I don't think the bucket headings you have here really help at all, 'interactive' is not a clear distinguishing characteristic of content/software, as its partly an aspect of the player and the context in which it is used. The set of stuff that is in the first bucket, but not in the second bucket needs some examples.

I also don't see how these get applied to a group of file types, as would typically be deployed on a website for example.

Contrast, Color and Flash don't really apply intrinsically to simple encoding types such as Unicode strings. It applies to their presentation, control of which may or may not be encoded in some other format or by a player. So you can't say a text document passes the contrast provision, but its presentation in an agent (possibly controlled by some other theme file) may do.

What we are trying to require here is that the end user experience be accessible, whether that experience be provided by software entirely running on a client, or software partly running on a client and partly sourced from elsewhere seems entirely moot to me.

We need provisions that control how a user experience is made accessible by a client, and how data is persisted and communicated so that the user experience can be reconstructed in an accessible manner by a client. Beyond that I don't think there is a sensible line that can be drawn. What you seem to be trying to do with the 'non interactive' bucket seems to me largely captured in the content format provisions.

Having additional clauses which apply to specific categories of software that can be identified (like Platform, Authoring tool, Media Player) does make a certain amount of sense, provided we can be reasonably crisp about the definition.


Sean Hayes
Standards and Policy Team
Corporate Accessibility Group
Microsoft
Phone:
mob +44 7977 455002
office +44 117 9719730


-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Gregg Vanderheiden
Sent: 25 July 2007 05:58
To: 'TEITAC Web/Software Subcommittee'
Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Merging Web and Software and what is Webcontent?

Hi Andi

I'm in China so I won't be able to join you. Some thoughts though.


1) The renaming may help with the software/content issue but exacerbates
the problem with general behavior.
There are many things that these apply to that most people don't
consider software (they think OS).
They need to clearly apply to the behavior in hardware that is
controlled by software or firmware.
So I don't think those names work - but have to think about it.

2) I thought color was the only thing that stayed up in General. Not a big
problem though. By the way WCAG is tuning their language.

Heck - I'll put the comments on the page next per your example so they are
in context and easier to use/consider.

Thanks for all your work on this.


Gregg
-- ------------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf
> Of Andi Snow-Weaver
> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 5:31 PM
> To: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> Subject: Re: [teitac-websoftware] Merging Web and Software
> and what is Webcontent?
>
>
> For tomorrow's Web and Software subcommittee meeting, I have
> tweaked the Web and Software re-organization proposal
> slightly to address some comments and some issues we have
> been discussing inside IBM. [1]
>
> Here is a summary of the changes:
>
> - changed the headings so that it is clear the first section
> applies to all software and all content; the second one
> applies to all software and all interactive content that is
> implemented using programming logic; the third one applies to
> software that is both a platform and an application; and the
> last section applies to authoring tools. Not sure what we
> should do about A/V content. I have not included those
> provisions for now.
>
> - Color - listed all three potential provisions so we can
> discuss which one is most appropriate.
>
> - Contrast - noted that this is in conflict with the User
> Preferences provision - we need to discuss if this is only
> applicable to content
>
> - Moved the consistent use of bitmaps provision up to the
> Consistent Identification provision. They are related but not
> exactly the same.
>
> - Rich raised an issue with the AT interoperability
> provision. For interactive electronic content that is
> rendered by a user agent, some of these provisions don't
> apply. For example, the boundary of text rendered to the
> screen. For interactive content, this function is provided by
> the user agent. So I have attempted to provide the WCAG User
> Interface Components requirement for interactive content and
> the AT interoperability provision for software. It's awkward
> but I hope it's headed in the right direction to resolve the concern.
>
> Please review before tomorrow's meeting.
>
> If you haven't looked at this before, please start with the
> background information that explains the goals. [2]
>
> I didn't get to the harmonization impact analysis [3] yet but
> it will also need to be tweaked slightly. I'll try to get
> that done before tomorrow's meeting.
>
> [1]
> http://teitac.org/wiki/Web_and_Software:_Reorganized_Web_and_S
> oftware_provisions
> [2] http://teitac.org/wiki/Web_and_Software:_Merging_Analysis
> [3]
> http://teitac.org/wiki/Web_and_Software:_Analysis_of_impact_to
> _harmonization_with_WCAG_2.0_and_ISO.
>
> Andi
>
>

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