Rough notes from UA teleconference

May 8, 1998

Hello, 

The following text represents my best attempt at 
taking notes during this afternoon's user agent 
teleconference.  I added a bit of explanation and 
summary information at the top of these notes. I will 
also post a series of separate questions to the list 
in order to facilitate discussion on specific topics
that came up during the call.

At the start of the meeting we decided to move through 
the current draft of the guidelines and make 
suggestions as to whether each feature
should 1) remain in the guidelines, 2) be removed from 
the guidelines, 3) be modified / clarified or 4) be 
addressed with further discussion. We did not make it 
through the entire document. The items listed 
immediately below are some of the key topics that need 
further discussion.

1. Should browsers be able to recognize operating 
system flags? (high contrast, etc)
2. How should browsers deal with OBJECT, APPLET and 
IMAGE presentation issues?
3. How should LONGDESC be implemented?
4. Should the browsers include a feature that allows 
presentation of structural information such as a list 
of headers?


Present on call: Jon Gunderson, Jim Allen, Charles 
Opperman, Madeline Rothberg, Tom Linkowski, David 
Poehlman, Kitch Barnicle

The goal is to publish a draft of the guidelines by 
the end of the month.

Review of current guidelines.

keep, omit, modify / clarify, more discussion

Presentation Adjustability
 
Item 5: change "single keyboard command" to "keyboard 
command" user 
Item 6: support aural style sheets

Should "support aural style sheets" be a separate 
recommendation?
Should this be changed to priority 2?

Item 7: user can specify CSS (Question: will user 
override author's important designation - yes CSS 
reader will over write)

Might want to explicitly say in the guidelines - "let 
user override author", since browser makers are 
picking and choosing which css2 features they want to 
implement.

Note: CSS2 is "huge", so MS has to be picky about what 
it includes, there is a possibility of outside work 
being done on it (outside of IE). 
Educational systems currently has a tool to work with 
IE, works well for children with learning disabilities 
??

Item 8: "external file to set browser style" 

Chuck - this feature is tightly related to item 5 
MS will create executable file to move "OS" settings, 
could incorporate IE settings

Jim: Could the browser accept a CSS from a URL?  so 
you could access a style sheet from a public site?

Item : background image 

Chuck - should background images be turned off when 
screen reader or magnifier is active ??? 

problem if you want to use screen reader AND have a 
background image

Should browsers be able to recognize system flags 
??(high contrast flag, etc)


Ignore pageformatting specification

chuck: is it sufficient to use a CSS that sets every 
possible setting to default and includes appropriate 
IMPORTANT settings - effectively negating an authors 
css?

JON: problem with positioning control - need to look 
into positioning
JIM: guidelines should say "be able to disable author 
CSS" each browser can choose its own way to implement 
this feature


Alternative representation of images

CHUCK: 3 possible situations

Objects turned off 
Object could not be found
Object could be found, but user has turned of images

Ability to not run objects is a security situation

Many companies develop objects/applets. Now user may 
not get adequate information about these objects and 
applets

1. object 
alt
longdesc
name
inner markup
title

2. images
alt
title

rendering of title and alt is contentious issues
alt tag used as tool tip in IE, some authors are using 
them for non-useful info

Chuck will send a message to the list explaining how 
IE implements images, objects, and applets.

D-link- 

MS doesn't link markup
Putting something outside of "box" may not be a good 
idea
D-link has no meaning outside industry

Could possibly add a script to context of page to look 
for images and add d links when available - would 
require user action to activate script

one suggestion could be that the D-link would be tab 
stoppable, images  would receive focus as if it were a 
link, user would hit enter and be taken to the long 
desc - 

(if longdesc present, info will be added to alt text 
indicating presence of longdesc)

Item:
User selectable option is available to turn on audio 
User selectable option is available to turn on closed 
captioning of video, images and annimations 

Could this be a spot where the browser should interact 
with OS? For example, if show sounds is set, 
captioning automatically appears.

Closely related to alt and markup in objects (audio & 
video will be coming through objects)


Alternative views of a document

1. presentation of structural (navigate through 
headers) (priority 2)
needs more discussion


Orientation Information-

document view - (priority 1?)


Element focus follows changes in page view. When the 
user changes the view of a page the element focus 
moves to that view. (priority 2)

When user pages down focus stays up at top of page. 
Next ie will move focus to first visible link.

(maintaining view in a frames page is also an issue 
that needs to be addressed)

Jim will post a statement about navigating between 
frames.

Document TITLE found in the HEAD section of the 
document should appear on a status line under user 
command. take out this features, similar to previous 
item

Brief document summary information is displayed on 
page loading on status.

This information is useful, should it be built in 
standard browser or 3rd party AT or specialized 
browser?






*************
DISCUSSION ITEMS: 

1. Should browsers be able to recognize system flags 
??(high contrast, etc)

2. Dealing with object presentation issues

3. applets

4. images

5. long description

6. presentation of structural

Received on Friday, 8 May 1998 16:16:40 UTC