Web and Software: March 28

Miscellaneous

• Minutes approved for March 14, 2007.
• Calendar:
  • April 11 - TEITAC meeting was cancelled so Web and Software subcommittee WILL meet.
  • Project Plan Started project plan.
    • Subteams proposals on keyboard and API requirements; additional topics currently discussing: 1) content encoding scheme, 2) cognitive, 3) authoring tools and user agents.
    • Second subcommittee submission due April 16th
      • Recommended that the sub teams need something for 4/11. Groups should have formally scheduled meetings to stay on track. Keyboard sub-team is close and doesn't need a meeting
      • Action: Andi to schedule a meeting on the API requirements proposal with sub-team.
    • Third subcommittee submission due June 18th
      • Need to include an economic assessment of the actions and cost of recommended changes for the Access Board.
      • Are virtual machines and connecting to remote systems included in the platform discussions? It was clarified that "platform" is not a type of software, but it is a characteristic. A browser is an application and a platform. "SW that provides services to other sw" With individual provisions. It should be specific.
      • 2 months to review and rethink and changes that are needed to requirements. We should start right away.
      • Action: Andi to add a Page on the topic of platforms so we can begin to discuss as soon as possible.

Review of action items

1. IN PROCESS: Rich Schwerdtfeger to give a presentation in mid-February on the future of Web and Software applications. Curtis to check with Jim Thatcher about providing a presentation on where graphical applications are going. Rich's presentation scheduled for April 4th. Jim Thatcher not participating in the subcommittee anymore.
2. ONGOING: Gregg Vanderheiden to do some research with the low vision community to see what they want with regard to color and contrast. Gregg is working with Lighthouse exploring the contrast issue. Developing and refining method of defining minimum contrast between text and background. Doing this for WCAG work and will share back with this group. Will post to this group when ready. Interesting findings: If you get into the vision science you will find out that different color blindness does not effect the luminosity, except for extreme red on black. They are trying to take complicated vision science and bring it down to something everyone can understand.
3. IN PROCESS: Gregg Vanderheiden, Curtis Chong, Sean Hayes, Don Barrett, Earl Johnson to continue to refine the keyboard proposal for the Web requirements. Need to determine what it is reasonable to ask someone to do and then work on the wording for it. Sean Hayes reported that the keyboard proposal for Web requirements is close to a solution and they would have something posted soon for discussion on the mailing list.
4. Katie Haritos-Shea to develop a proposal for authoring tools requirements and a set of Q&As based on the W3C Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines. Should have this completed by this week. Andi to try to get ideas from Katie so that they can be considered with Allen's proposal.
5. IN PROCESS: Jim Allan has to formulated the appropriate W3C copyright notice and is awaiting approval, then it will be added to all wiki pages that quote W3C provisions. Jim redrafted it and Judy needs to edit it. She will forward it to us by next week.
6. Allen Hoffman will work on language and platform issues as a starting point for applets and plugins. Hasn't gone anywhere yet, but commits to having something by next week.
7. COMPLETE: Andi Snow-Weaver to identify additional requirements that would need to be added to 1194.22 for applets and plugins. Review of mapping would be a good starting point. For discussion this week.
8. IN PROCESS: Allen Hoffman will work on proposal for provisions to address authoring tools and user agents.
9. IN PROCESS: Jamie Smith will provide a concrete proposal for suppressing unneeded functions that can be discussed next week.
10. IN PROCESS: Andi Snow-Weaver will update the cognitive proposal for compatibility with assistive technologies to address Peter Korn’s concerns, but this can not be closed until the API requirements are done. In addition, regulatory language will be added.

Technical Topics

Web: Harmonization with WCAG 2.0

• Proposal
• Discussion
  • Discussed definitions being added to the draft.
    • Suggestion that definitions do not need to be repeated with each "provision" that uses them, but rather included with each "section" in which they are used. A Definition section on each standard that lists them all at the top would improve usability for developers who only want to look at the section that is relevant to them.
    • But this is not up to us. CFR handles how definitions are handled. The Access Board (AB) will have to break the definition out and put them in a definition section and handle the rules for definitions.
    • We will keep the definitions close by the provision throughout our processes. The final form will be determined by the AB.
    • One of the themes of TEITAC is usablity of the standard. The standard would be more usable if the user had easy access to the definition. Provide this as feedback on the theme of usability of the standard.
  • Discussion on 1194.22B
    • Options considered:
      • Copy provisions from A/V so that the Web list is self-contained.
      • Reference relevant Audio/video (AV) provisions.
      • Leave it out of the Web part because developers need to understand that multiple sections of 508 may apply to what they are doing. Make a recommendation to add something to subpart A on the applicability of the standards.
    • This has been proposed on a more global level, which is being worked, toward an overall structure, as well as how all these provisions are being sorted out. Provisions will be there but not repeated. A sort tool will be used to pull a set of what you need to pay attention to, as well as related definitions. The tool allows sorting by product and provisions that apply, which is determined by language in the provision. Bringing definitions, by product, along with it would be very useful. This is part of a new format being discussed.
    • People who are interested in this discussion are invited to come over to the general discussion. They would like contributions from different groups. In addition, it was made clear by the AB that they need to produce a flat document, other tools that are useful are wonderful but the deliverable must be a flat paper document. It has to form part of the CFR and that is its format.
  • Discussion on 1194.22D
    • Proposal is on the right track but may take a little wordsmithing. Must preserve logical reading order. Make it read so others can understand it. Accuracy vs readability.
    • Concern about whether the word should be "determinable" or "determined". "Determined" implies something the AT has to do.
    • Programmatically determinable means it "can" be determined by a user-agent or AT.
    • Techniques are needed to describe how this can be done. Could refer to "WCAG 2.0" for these.
    • Consensus is to go with provision as worded rather than any of the suggested revisions. Allen thinks some wordsmithing is needed and will provide suggestions.
  • Discussion on 1194.22f
    • AJAX Accordion opens a tab, but it is actually a link. Would this cover that type of thing? Something that acts like an expand/collapse?
    • There are a lot of techniques for AJAX. It needs something so people can figure out what it does. Not sure if it would cover the case of AJAX Accordian.
    • In ARIA there are accessibility properties called "expandable". Behaving like a button but acts as a link. Adding name role properties should cover it.
    • A lot of this is covered in the provision with regard to AJAX, as well as some focusing issues, but it is being handled by the Interoperability group.
    • List recommendation to change "and" to an "or". Should this remain as an "and"?
    • Wording designed to allow "Click here" links as long as the context in which the link occurs can be programmatically determined. The union of the link text and it's programmatically determinable context differentiates it from other links on the page.
    • One of the problem is with a book title with 3 or 4 different formats. (pdf, html, etc.)Links at the top of the page says "pdf, link, or doc". Do we want the long name as the report of the book for each format. On the page it can also be confusing when there are multiple versions. User AT could look at a link "click here" and provide a tell me more and provide context to find out what the link is about. Must move forward in terms of AT. How to get around the problem with multiple versions without repeating the title.
    • Recommended new wording: "... and the context for the link which is programmatically determinable." Consensus was to keep original "programmatically determinable link context."
    • Need consistency of the term "programmatically determinable" or "can be programmatically determined" throughout.

Content

• Proposal to add a section defining the document encoding scheme requirements
• No additional discussion items added to mailing list after initial post.
• Recommendation made to try to get to "Content" by prioritizing it on the agenda if Allen is on the call. Andi will kick off another list discussion on this as well.
• Content discussion postponed until next week.

Summary of New Action Items

• Andi will add a Page on the platform topic to collect discussion.

Attendance

1. Tom Brett (TCS Associates)
2. Gregg Vanderheiden (Trace)
3. Steve Jacobs
4. Andi Snow-Weaver - IBM
5. Nick Truesdell (IRS)
6. Jim Tobias
7. Drew LaHart - IBM
8. Andrew Kirkpatrick (Adobe)
9. Amy Chen (Oracle)
10. Blene Bekure (LMIT)
11. William Loughborough
12. Eric Damery, Freedom Scientific
13. Sharon Snider - IBM
14. Bruce Bailey (Access Board)
15. Jim Elekes (Access Board)
16. Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems
17. Jamie Smith, FL Blind
18. ken kipnes (oracle)
19. shannont@us.ibm.com
20. Steve
21. Don Barrett
22. Angela Hooker
23. Jim Elekes (Access Board)
24. Allen Hoffman
25. David Oyola (Ricoh Corporation)
26. Donald Evans
27. Judy Brewer (W3C/WAI)
28. Alex Li (SAP)
29. Michael Cooper, W3C
30. Barbara Lybarger, Mass. Office on Disability
31. Cynthia Shelly
32. Rich Schwerdtfeger - IBM