minutes of today's meeting

Linked from the home page, at http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/meetings/8aug00 and
included below

Charles


   [1]W3C [2]Web Accessibility Initiative 
   
   [3]WAI Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group
   
                     WAI AU Teleconference - 8 August 2000
                                       
Details

   Chair: Jutta Treviranus
   
   Date: Tuesday 8 August 2000
   
   Time: 2:30pm - 4:00pm Boston time (1830Z - 2000Z)
   
   Phone number: Tobin Bridge, +1 (617) 252 7000
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Agenda

   The Latest Draft is the Recommendation dated 3 February, available at
   [4]http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-ATAG10-20000203. The latest
   techniques draft is dated 4 May March, available at
   [5]http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/WD-ATAG10-TECHS-20000504. The latest draft
   of the Accessibiltiy Evaluation and Repair Techniques is dated 15
   March at [6]http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert-20000315
    1. [7]Review outstanding action items
    2. [8]Other business
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Attendance

     * Charles McCathieNevile
     * Jutta Treviranus
     * Marjolein Katsma
     * Jan Richards
     * William Loughborough
     * Heather Swayne
     * Fred Barnett
       
  Regrets
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Action Items and Resolutions
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Minutes

   CMN: Setup databases for reviews page
          Outstanding
          
   CMN: Publish testing draft
          Outstanding
          
   FB: Review Homesite
          Outstanding
          
  Evaluation Process
  
   JT First question is whether we create the process with different
   streams or views? e.g. by type of tool. This would allow for more
   compact evaluation.
   
   CMN It is a significant improvement in ease of use, rather than a
   primary requirement
   
   JT It is oimportant to consider that as a goal if we want it at some
   point.
   
   WL I am going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the idea of a
   template. It uses energy that could be used reviewing.
   
   JR We are not going to do all the reviews. It would be nice to have a
   template where other people can happily do at least their own
   preliminary reviews and come up with the same kind of answers
   
   WL I don't see these things working that well. But I could be wrong.
   
   JT It is clearly difficult to do reviews, so this is probably an
   important part of making it possible for people to do it.
   
   JT What do we want to use as primary structure and secondary
   structure. Given the number of relative checkpoints (and guideline 7
   is an entity in itself) do we want to structure it by WCAG, or via
   ATAG guideline order?
   
   JR I would prefer following the ATAG order. When WCAAG goes to version
   2 it would be nice if that was secondary rather than primary.
   
   CMN In some cases a single test will answer several questions. So
   running through in ATAG order, but in some cases answers will be
   filled in in advance, based on earlier tests.
   
   JT If we take this process through the evaluation it will be the
   evluator who will have to determine that the questions have been
   addressed.
   
   CMN This is a mior thing, but a neat optimisation when it does occur
   
   JT In going through an authring tool evaluation, if you are looking at
   the functionality for creating a table (for example) there are a
   number of different relevant questions that come up in one context. So
   the question came up should we do it around the WCAG classification?
   
   CMN We may fnd that we use neither order strictly to cope with this
   (which is why I want to get this testing thing out and start talking
   about it :-(
   
   JT I can se the value of sticking to ATAG, but from a practical point
   of view it is nice not to have to return to a function over again
   instead of dealing with it once.
   
   CMN I agree.
   
   HS Any ordering that helps increase the performance I am in favour of.
   The order in the guidelines makes sense for product groups to set out
   priorities and planning, but performing an evaluation you want ti to
   be as easy and quick as possible
   
   CMN, JR agree.
   
   JT Possibly the report that is generated may produce different kind of
   reports with different orders.
   
   JR The evaluation might not strictly be presented as checkpoints, but
   as tasks with questions about them.
   
   WL It rtakes a while to know a tool well enough to evaluate it.
   
   CMN True. But that isn't really a problem - there are people and
   developers who know the product really well.
   
   MK You need to find people who are comfortable with a product to
   evaluate it. Apart from developers who will be biased we need actual
   users who know the product already.
   
   WL I don' think the bias is nearly as significant as the fact that the
   act of doing this will be helpful. A developer is not trying to
   disguise what is happening, but finding out what is missing and fix
   it.
   
   MK That is two different kinds of evaluation
   
   JT Part of what we want in the report is who did the evaluation.
   
   MK Apart from problems like can you install it in the first place. The
   pespective of a user can be different to that of a developer.
   
   JT A developer depsite best intentions may think something is obvious
   when it isn't to users - that happens often.
   
   WL The big thing is that the developer is probably going to be the
   most skilled user
   
   MK Not necessarily. Especiallly where a tool is built by a team -
   there may be people who know their bit well without an overall view.
   
   JT Next question was whether to assess and see if it fails P1 and then
   stop, or to do a full assessment for all checkpoints. Should there be
   an express evaluation?
   
   HS I don't think so. I think it is valuable to say where it failed and
   didn't
   
   WL I think the typical thing is Webwatch - often a site will be stated
   to be accessible in certain areas or ways even with a lot of problems.
   That will be the way it is for most of the forseeable future so it is
   useful
   
   JR it is a bit of a time constraint - I didn't have time to do a full
   review and it was so bad there wasn't a lot of point in going into it
   in great detail
   
   CMN We would prefer to have full reviews. Whether we get them or not
   is a different question
   
   JR Right. These things are difficult and take a lot of time. So our
   choice of tools is a little arbitrary. Are we working from most
   popular to least poopular tools?
   
   JT We haven't got a method of choosing yet. At the moment we are
   loking at the process, and going with things we feel we can evaluate
   now.
   
   JR What if we send the thing out to developers.
   
   CMN There are three groups that can help. Developers, User groups, and
   reviewers.
   
   WL Should this come out with RDF
   
   CMN I would love it to do so. I have been talking to Wendy about this
   
   JT What kind of reports do we want to generate? There are ways we can
   do comparison charts for consumers, reports for developers, ...
   
   HS I am not sure how the consumer and developer are different in their
   requirements.
   
   JT In a report for a developer it is useful to have ways to fix the
   problem, that is often not useful to a consumer - they just want a
   comparison to make a purchasing decision on. I wuld see a developer
   report being a bit more verbose
   
   MK Apart from comparing tools, consumer reports would be useful to
   have workarounds for problem areas.
   
   CMN For example what things you can add to make a tool do whatever it
   doesn't yet.
   
   CMN We have talked about this a little in ER recently.
   
   WL Have we mentioned script authoring tool.
   
   CMN What I would call a supported programming envronment?
   
   WL Yeah, sure.
   
   MK There are any number of languages you can be using.
   
   WL If someone produces a javascript generator can they assess it
   against ATAG?
   
   CMN In principle yes. It would be interesting to see a real
   assessment.
   
   JT Any more thoughts?
   
   CMN The more information we collected the better we can talk about
   that topic
   
   JT There are some questions that are determined by the uses for the
   answers so we want to keep that in mind even if it is premature
   
   JT Last question I had is ranking and scoring tests.
   
   CMN We clearly want more than A, double-A, triple-A available. THe
   next obvious one is checkpoint by checkpoint.
   
   JR So say you have several different partial evaluations. How will the
   different opinions be weighted?
   
   CMN The scheme I ahve in mind is to be able to identify each test
   performed, and who did it. In general I think the aggregate of test
   done is likely to be reliable, but it may be useful to be able to
   remove a particular set of results
   
   WL I don't think we are going to be flooded with information
   
   JT The point is how much granularity do we want? Do I want specific
   information about to what extent checkpoint 3.1 is met?
   
   CMN It is possible to compare against profiles - disability
   requirements, authoring preferences, etc.
   
   JR How do people put an icon on their box.
   
   CMN There is no conformance enforcement or certification at the
   moment. If someone makes an obviously false claim we pillory themm in
   public. But Karl is working in that area, and I think by the time the
   problem is able to arise he will have thought about it.
   
   JT We obviously want granularity - for relative checkpoints we at
   least want to know which pieces are met or not.
   
   CMN To the extent that we can break things down to lots of yes/no
   questions that is easier to deal with.
   
   JT I think there are people whoare intersested in doing the work.
   
   JT Our evaluation process is going to be one of Karl's practise areas,
   so we are having a conference call with him in the next couple of
   days. We will let you know what is happening.
   
  Face to Face agenda
  
   JT We have talked about the afternoon (Friday) with the WCAG - the
   rpoposal for saturday is to break out into working groups to work on
   fleshing out techniques and look at test processes. How do people feel
   about that.
   
   Action CMN/JT Send preliminary list of tasks to list
     _________________________________________________________________
   
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   Last Modified $Date: 2000/08/08 19:33:41 $

References

   1. http://www.w3.org/WAI/
   2. http://www.w3.org/WAI/
   3. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU
   4. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/PR-WAI-AUTOOLS-19991210/
   5. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/WD-ATAG10-TECHS-20000308
   6. http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert
   7. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/meetings/8aug00#Action1
   8. http://www.w3.org/WAI/AU/meetings/8aug00#Other
   9. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice.html#Copyright
  10. http://www.w3.org/
  11. http://www.lcs.mit.edu/
  12. http://www.inria.fr/
  13. http://www.keio.ac.jp/
  14. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice.html#Legal Disclaimer
  15. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice.html#W3C Trademarks
  16. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-documents.html
  17. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-software.html
  18. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement.html#Public
  19. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/privacy-statement.html#Members

Received on Tuesday, 8 August 2000 19:38:48 UTC