Re: Public feedback on HTML5 video

John Foliot  wrote:

> As one who advocates for the minority more often than not, I am somewhat
> distressed when I read about the notion that the "author knows best"
> (earlier in this thread).  It has been my experience that this assertion is
> false more often than it is true.  I believe that Edward's suggestion here
> is the best position, as it rightly gives the final determination to the end
> user - who after all is the real client. User agents should be the final
> arbitrators, and further it would be ideal if the auto-buffer (and
> auto-start) options could be further modified by the end user as a UA
> setting, which over-rides any of the 3 options Edward suggests in favor of a
> declared preference by the end user.  (For example, a deaf-blind user has
> zero need for the bandwidth hogging of a video stream when all they want is
> the associated text transcript; thus they could set their rig to never
> auto-buffer, never auto-start).

Agreed. Another example: not everyone worldwide has the availability
of broadband, so dial-up is their only option. How do I know this? 56K
dialup is the only internet connectivity at my residence.

As a user I want to be able to control media. I want to know a video
is there. And ideally be able to obtain a plain text transcript. The
one thing that I do not want to happen is for the video to start
loading automatically and grind everything to a crawl or halt.

>From the draft Design Principles, "Priority of Constituencies":

"In case of conflict, consider users over authors over implementors
over specifiers over theoretical purity."
http://www.w3.org/TR/html-design-principles/#priority-of-constituencies

Best Regards,
Laura

On 12/28/09, John Foliot <jfoliot@stanford.edu> wrote:
> Edward O'Connor wrote:
>>
>> Essentially, we have three things we'd like authors to be able to
>> convey to the browser:
>>   1. Do whatever the browser thinks best.
>>   2. Please autobuffer.
>>   3. Please *don't* autobuffer.
>>
>> And there are a few things we'd like to be able to say about whatever
>> design we settle on:
>>
>>   A. (1) above should be the default condition, so its syntax should be
>>      what most authors will do anyway (not provide attributes at all).
>
> <snipped>
>
>> ... I think
>> autobuffer="" should probably become an enumerated attribute[1] instead
>> of a boolean attribute. Something like the following:
>>
>>   1. Do whatever the browser thinks best. [no autobuffer attribute]
>>   2. Please autobuffer. [autobuffer="on"]
>>   3. Please *don't* autobuffer. [autobuffer="off"]
>
> As one who advocates for the minority more often than not, I am somewhat
> distressed when I read about the notion that the "author knows best"
> (earlier in this thread).  It has been my experience that this assertion is
> false more often than it is true.  I believe that Edward's suggestion here
> is the best position, as it rightly gives the final determination to the end
> user - who after all is the real client. User agents should be the final
> arbitrators, and further it would be ideal if the auto-buffer (and
> auto-start) options could be further modified by the end user as a UA
> setting, which over-rides any of the 3 options Edward suggests in favor of a
> declared preference by the end user.  (For example, a deaf-blind user has
> zero need for the bandwidth hogging of a video stream when all they want is
> the associated text transcript; thus they could set their rig to never
> auto-buffer, never auto-start).
>
> I believe the old saw goes: "Author proposes, user disposes"
>
> My $0.02 Canadian
>
> JF

-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Tuesday, 29 December 2009 10:03:46 UTC