Web and Software: May 16

Miscellaneous

• Minutes approved from May 9, 2007.
• Face to face meeting Wednesday, May 23rd 3:15 - 4:00 PM Eastern time
  • Conference call bridge will be provided
  • Captioning will be arranged by the Access Board
  • Details will be posted to the mailing list and the wiki as soon as they are available
    • We currently there is no set agenda and we did not get additional time. Captioning has been reserved.
    • Correspondence requests for reservation were posted to the committee list. Contact them immediately to RSVP.

Review of action items

1. CLOSED: Gregg Vanderheiden, Curtis Chong, Sean Hayes, Don Barrett, Earl Johnson to continue to refine the keyboard proposal for the Web requirements.
   • Final wording: All functionality of the user interface is operable through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for individual keystrokes, except where the underlying function requires input that depends on the path of the user's movement and not just the endpoints.
     • Note: This exception relates to the underlying function, not the input technique. For example, if using handwriting to enter text, the input technique (handwriting) requires path dependent input but the underlying function (text input) does not.
     • Note: This does not forbid and should not discourage providing mouse input or other input methods in addition to keyboard operation.
     • No objections or comments to closing this action item. It has been harmonized with WCAG and will go into Web and Software recommendations.
2. IN PROCESS: Allen Hoffman will work on language and platform issues as a starting point for applets and plugins. Discussion started on the mailing list.
3. 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.
4. Allen Hoffman will sync provision 2 with AV group definition by next week. - Has not had time to get this done. It will be next week.
5. Andi Snow-Weaver will go back through and look for inconsistent language related to AT.
6. IN PROCESS: Peter Korn and Sean Hayes to think about wording for 21g and provide a rewrite. Vendor should have documented as accessibility within the user interface.
   • Concern with calling settings such as display attributes accessibility setting or features. We need to come up with terminology to capture what we mean but is not so broad that it encompasses more than we mean.
   • Goal is to say documented as an accessibility feature... list features that can be used for people with disabilities. Question is how does an application know where the list is? Stuck trying to make it not too narrow and not too wide.
     • Still in progress. Peter made a proposal but they haven't settled on wording. One month to complete.
7. IN PROCESS: Sean Hayes will develop a provision that we can propose on resolution of images that enables them to be enlarged and still be readable. This was discussed as part of the "Graphical text used as navigation components" discussion.
   • Mailing list discussion started
     • 4x resolution displayed at the default size on the Web. It should not apply to Software. Software does not scale the same as a Web broswer. Does not apply to Vector graphics. This provides extra resolution over normal display size.
     • Concern with language. Hard to come up with a testable provision that is easy to understand and apply.
     • Some discussion on bandwidth, and that 16x resolution does not mean 16x its size. Bandwith cost will not be that great. Typically images are cached.
     • Additional concern with artifacts in the other direction... large to small, which is what we are advocating here. Some normal images may not look that good. There would be Web developer resistence.
     • Most scaling divided by 2 will scale properly. If you use odd numbers things can get ugly. With 4x it should not be a problem.
     • Ideal would be an extension to html with a list of images in a variety of sizes and it chooses what it wants. But this involves an extension to our protocols.
     • Sean and Peter will discuss offline and report back.

Technical Topics

Presentation by Jan Richards on the W3C Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines

• Slides with left right arrow icons for navigation
• Slides - click anywhere or use space bar to advance slides, can also use Page Up and Page Down
• HTML document
• Presentation Discussion:
  • Question raised, "Are the levels of conformance (A AA AAA) helping the author?" The tool prompts for some but not all information. Response was that the checkpoints point to accessibility standards, checking and prompting for conformance. The author can have minimum requirements with 508. The Degree to which the author needs to manage equivalent alternatives requires more automation.
  • If the authoring tool creates AJAX, is putting out java script, and these things need to meet ARIA, the tools would check and prompt for ARIA issues.
  • Manual check is similar to low level. If it has images, the documentation states you must check for alt text. Repair, if its missing the attribute, then you do ... Semi-auto flow through. Does this image provide descriptive text and describe a long attribute? Checking and identifying problems, if this element lacks alt text it is inaccessible and it directs the user to go check. Semi-auto does a repair with some input for the author.
  • The benchmark document can be written by anyone depending on the format and tool. This may depend on who writes it. As an example, Adobe could write one for PDF that is used for a number of authoring tools. Someone else could write a new one. Conformance claims have to be public.
  • When there are multiple tools in a single authoring process it is up to the person making the claim who is responsible. For example using PPT and Flash with checking built into Flash you could say Flash is accessible. On the other hand if PPT does the alt text you could claim conformance when the two are working together if Flash relys on the PPT to provide alt text.
  • Discussion on a thread from April when people were proposing difference pieces that were similar to ATAG, but wouldn't have provided as comprehensive support as PART B of ATAG. It makes sense to look at this for ideas, but would not necessarily go so far as just referring to Part B. No one wants a whole category for authoring tools, but would like to have a provision.
  • Another issue is that we have not been able to define content as a group. A lot of good context in the ATAG, but not the meaning of content in general.
  • Whether we are looking at adopting ATAG or something like ATAG, we may be looking at a more general statement. ATAG has a good authoring workflow tool chain. Manual and automated repair and recognition of manual, semi-auto and automated testing. If we do have a content section, this may belong in content, rather then its own section.
  • Action item: Judy Brewer volunteers to help pull something together looking at the current provision and ATAG to revise the proposal. Suggested Allen or Katie could help. Dana, and Peter (Peter after 4th TEITAC meeting) offered to help.

1194.21 (b) and (g) applicability to Web content and applications

• No response to mailing list posting
  • 21(b) and 21(g) did not map to WCAG. Action item to discuss on the mailing list with no response. Haven't come to any conclusion if we need these in the Web section.
  • 21(b) and 21(g) are useful and important. We need to wade into Platform on a platform discussion. Such as operating system and browser, colors and conflicts related to conveying information.
  • Concern that we really don't know how to do this in the browser and there may be a problem already in the current 508 provision.
  • We should make an attempt, to look at platform on a platform between now and when the 3rd draft is due.
  • Not much talk on this for about 6 months. Really didn't reach any conclusions. Recommendation to put this aside.

WCAG 2.0 provisions that could address cognitive disabilities

• No significant support for adding these to the Web provisions
• Objection to adding them to the software provisions
  • Concern that we are not equiped to address this... soft keys, issue of labeling of softkeys, and where it belongs. Software, Hardware, or General.
  • This provision was proposed by Greg and he is not here today, so it will be difficult to discuss.

New Action Items

• Judy Brewer volunteers to help pull something together looking at the current provision and ATAG to revise the proposal. Suggested asking Allen and Katie to paticipate also.

Attendees

1. Andi Snow-Weaver - IBM
2. Tom Brett
3. Sharon Snider - IBM
4. Nick Truesdell (IRS)
5. Jim Allan (W3C-WAI)
6. Alex Li (SAP)
7. Jim Elekes (Access Board)
8. Andrew Kirkpatrick (Adobe)
9. sean hayes (Microsoft)
10. Bruce Bailey (Access Board)
11. Angela Hooker
12. Michael Cooper, W3C
13. Blene Bekure (LMIT)
14. Greg Fields (RIM)
15. Judy Brewer (W3C/WAI)
16. Dana Louise Simberkoff-HiSoftware
17. Shannon Rapuano - IBM
18. Peter Korn, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
19. Jan Richards