Fwd: [UAAG2] Comments

These comments came into the public comments UAAG list today. I am 
forwarding it for those who don't subscribe to that list.

jeanne

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [UAAG2] Comments
Resent-Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:21:59 +0000
Resent-From: public-uaag2-comments@w3.org
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 10:21:28 -0400
From: timeless <timeless@gmail.com>
To: public-uaag2-comments@w3.org

http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG20/

4.1.2 Keystroke Precedence: The user has the option to specify that
keystrokes be processed in the following order: user agent user
interface, user agent extensions, content keystroke operations
administered by the user agent (e.g., access keys), and executable
content (e.g., key press events in scripts, etc.). (Level A)

-- UAs which allow Extensions usually do so in a cooperative way, i.e.
the extension *becomes* the UA and can do anything the UA can do; the
UA does not understand what the UA-Ex does nor can it prevent the
UA-Ex from doing something. Requiring such a separation isn't
reasonable. It is reasonable to request UA-Ex's not be rude, but it
isn't acceptable to demand this level of separation.

4.1.10 Override of UI Keyboard Commands: The user can override any
keyboard shortcut binding for the user agent user interface except for
conventional bindings for the operating environment (e.g., for access
to help). The rebinding options must include single-key and
key-plus-modifier keys if available in the operating environment.
(Level AA)

-- This seems like something that an accessibility agent should do on
its own - i.e. filter strokes and remap them before delivering to the
UA -- requiring this of a general UA is overkill and not particularly
useful. If a User needs this feature in a Web Browser, the user is
likely to need it in other applications as well, and having a single
place to do this (either at the OS level or at the AT level) is much
better for such a user than asking each app provide its own
facilities.

4.2.1 List event handlers: The user can, through keyboard input alone,
have presented the list of input device event handlers explicitly
associated with the content focus element. (Level A)

-- This is an interesting and perhaps even noble requirement. To my
knowledge nothing implements this.

4.2.3 Activate all event handlers: The user can, through keyboard
input alone, simultaneously activate all input device event handlers
explicitly associated with the content focus element. (Level A)

-- This doesn't make any sense. If there are 10 event handlers on a
given node, each of which expects state (which mouse button, which
keyboard key, which mouse wheel, what direction), there's no way to
provide a useful behavior for this. Nor is any application going to be
able to handle it.

4.4.2 Three Flashes: In its default configuration, the user agent does
not display any user interface components or recognized content that
flashes more than three times in any one second period (regardless of
whether not the flash is below the general flash and red flash
thresholds). (Level AAA) [WCAG 2.0]

-- s/whether not/whether or not/

4.6.1 Find:The user can perform a search within rendered content
(e.g., not hidden with a style), including text alternatives, for any
sequence of characters from the document character set set. (Level A)

-- s/set set/set/

4.6.4 Alert on No Match: The user is notified when there is no match
or after the last match in content (i.e., prior to starting the search
over from the beginning of content). (Level A)

-- s/i.e./e.g./ -- when searching backwards the search doesn't start
over from the beginning of content.

4.6.5 Advanced Find: The user agent provides an accessible advanced
search facility, with a case sensitive and case-insensitive search
option, and the ability for the user to perform a search within all
content (including hidden content and captioning) for text and text
alternatives, for any sequence of characters from the document
character set. (Level AA)

-- document character set isn't a link here (it was in 4.6.1)

4.9.4 Execution Toggle: The user has the option to turn on/off the
execution of executable content that would not normally be contained
within a particular area (e.g., Javascript). (Level A)

-- s/not//
-- s/Javascript/JavaScript/g
-- note that this isn't really implementable. Users and useragents
have no way of knowing which JavaScript controls the rendering of
which area(s). The best one can do is ignore areas or ignore sources
of JavaScript.

4.9.6 Stop/Pause/Resume Multimedia: The user can stop, pause, and
resume rendered audio and animation content (including video and
animated images) that last three or more seconds at their default
playback rate. (Level A)

4.9.6 Navigate Multimedia:The user can navigate along the timebase
using a continuous scale, and by relative time units within rendered
audio and animations (including video and animated images) that last
three or more seconds at their default playback rate. (Level A)

-- s/:The/: The/
-- s/timebase/timeline/ ??
-- This doesn't work well for live streams of potentially infinite length

4.9.9 Sizing Playback Viewport: User has the ability to adjust the
size of the time-based media up to the full height or width of the
containing viewport, with the ability to preserve aspect ratio and to
adjust the size of the playback viewport to avoid cropping, within the
scaling limitations imposed by the media itself. (Level AA)

-- If content is nested 20 times <iframe><iframe><iframe>...<video>,
then being able to zoom a video to its containing viewport doesn't
seem helpful.

Guideline 5.1 Help users avoid unnecessary messages. [Implementing 5.1]

5.1.2 Retrieval Progress: Show the progress of content retrieval. (Level A)

-- It's unclear how *showing* such progress helps users avoid
unnecessary messages. UAs of late are hiding such messages as they
tend to be rather unhelpful to users. And for dynamic content requests
(XMLHttpRequest), they generally don't show progress anyway; content
chooses whether or not to tell the user about it.

5.2.1 Form Submission: The user has the ability to redefine keyboard
shortcuts for submitting and canceling recognized forms. (Level AA)

-- What does canceling mean?

5.4 The user agent must behave in a predictable fashion.

-- this is over indented (there's a misplaced </div> afaict)

     An application programming interface (API) defines how
communication may take place between applications.

-- not "between applications"

     The people who have worked either alone or collaboratively to
create the content (includes content authors, designers, programmers,
publishers, testers, etc.).

-- s/testers, etc./and testers/ -- "includes" implies "not a complete
set" and thus precludes the need for "etc."

     The background of the content as a whole, such that no content may
be layered behind it. In graphics applications, the base background is
often referred to as the canvas.).

-- s/).//

captions

-- s/captions/caption/ -- most definitions are in the singular, and
your definition is in the singular. You can make this change or the
set of changes below the following text...

     An equivalent alternative that takes the form of text presented
and synchronized with time-based media to provide not only the speech,
but also non-speech information conveyed through sound, including
meaningful sound effects and identification of speakers.

-- s/An//; s/alternative/alternatives/; s/takes/take/ -- "captions" is
in plural form

          In some countries, the term "subtitle" is used to refer to
dialogue only and "captions" is used as the term for dialogue plus
sounds and speaker identification.

-- s/dialogue/dialog/g ? "Dialog" is used in w3 contexts [1] and is
the en-US (official language for w3 documents) spelling.

          In other countries, "subtitle" (or its translation) is used
to refer to both. Open captions are captions that are always rendered
with a visual track; they cannot be turned off. Closed captions are
captions that may be turned on and off.
          The captions requirements of this document assume that the
user agent can recognize the captions as such.

-- s/as such/as such, i.e. are closed captions/ ?

content (Web content)
     Information and sensory experience to be communicated to the user
by means of a user agent, including code or markup that defines the
content's structure, presentation, and interactions [adapted from WCAG
2.0]

-- s/]/]./

     The internal representation of data in the source content by a user 
agent.

-- s/data in the source content/the source content data/
-- s/(internal .*) by a user agent/user agent's $1/

          This is an overview of DOM-related materials here at W3C and
around the web: http://www.w3.org/DOM/#what.

-- s/This is an/An/; s/web:/web is available at:/

     Any information that supports the use of a user agent. This
information may be found, for example, in manuals, installation
instructions, the help system, and tutorials.

-- s/the help/its help/

     This document uses the terms "element" and "element type"
primarily in the sense employed by the XML 1.0 specification ([XML],
section 3): an element type is a syntactic construct of a document
type definition (DTD) for its application. This sense is also relevant
to structures defined by XML schemas. The document also uses the term
"element" more generally to mean a type of content (such as video or
sound) or a logical construct (such as a header or list).

-- s/The document/It/ -- or This document.

         * text alternative [WCAG 2.0]: text that is available via the
operating environment that is used in place of non-text content (e.g.,
text equivalents for images, text transcripts for audio tracks, or
collated text transcripts for a movie).

-- WCAG isn't linked
 
         Note: Users can make errors when interacting with the user
agent. For example, a user may inadvertently respond "yes" to a prompt
instead of "no." In this document, this type of error is still
considered an explicit user request.

-- s/still/also/

focus (includes: active input focus, active selection, cursor, focus
cursor, focusable element, highlight, inactive input focus, inactive
selection, input focus, keyboard focus, pointer, pointing device
focus, selection, split focus, text cursor)

-- the items inside here aren't indented in Nightly which makes it
incredibly hard to read/follow

     The input focus location in the active viewport. The active focus
is in the active viewport, while the inactive input focus is the
inactive viewport. The active input focus is usually visibly
indicated. In this document "active input focus" generally refers to
the active keyboard input focus.

-- s/the inactive/an inactive/g -- while there is only one active
input focus, there can be many inactive things.

     The selection that will currently be affected by a user command,
as opposed to selections in other viewports, called inactive
selections, which would not currently be affected by a user command.

-- s/currently// -- or if you insist on a word you could use "directly"

     Visual indicator showing where keyboard input will occur. There
are two types of cursors: focus cursor (e.g. the dotted line around a
button) and text cursor (e.g. the flashing vertical bar in a text
field, also called a 'caret'). Cursors are active when in the active
viewport, and inactive when in an inactive viewport.

-- there's a third type of cursor, called the "mouse cursor", while
you're free to ignore it in your document, it should be mentioned in
this section. Also, generally I don't think that focus rings are
considered "cursors" in normal UI/UX guidelines, so I'd suggest that
you note that this is nonstandard terminology.


     Indicator that highlights a user interface element to show that it
has keyboard focus, e.g. a dotted line around a button, or brightened
title bar on a window. There are two types of cursors: focus cursor
(e.g. the dotted line around a button) and text cursor (e.g. the
flashing vertical bar in a text field).

-- I'm not sure that repeating the count of types of cursor in a more
detailed element (focus cursor v. cursor) helps anyone.

     Any element capable of having input focus, e.g. link, text box, or
menu item. In order to be accessible and fully usable, every focusable
element should take keyboard focus, and ideally would also take
pointer focus.

-- s/link/a link/
-- "pointer focus" isn't defined in this glossary, the link is to
"pointing device

focus"

     Emphasis indicated through the user interface. For example, user
agents highlight content that is selected,focused, or matched by a
search operation. Graphical highlight mechanisms include dotted boxes,
changed colors or fonts, underlining, magnification, and reverse
video. Synthesized speech highlight mechanisms include alterations of
voice pitch and volume ("speech prosody"). User interface items may
also be highlighted, for example a specific set of foreground and
background colors for the title bar of the active window. Note that
content that is highlighted may or may not be a selection.

-- s/selected,focussed/selected, focussed/
-- s/focussed/focused/g

     A selection that does not have the input focus and thus does not
take input events.

-- what does take mean?

keyboard focus
     The screen location where keyboard input will occur if a viewport
is active. Keyboard focus can be active (in the active viewport) or
inactive (in an inactive viewport).

-- I'm not sure that calling it a "screen location" makes sense. It's
probably a document or viewport location.

pointer
     Visual indicator showing where pointing device input will occur.

-- "occur" isn't really the right term, it might be the coordinates
which will be used as a basis for generating input, but the input will
go to whatever makes sense, in some cases if there's something
capturing input, input will go elsewhere.

          NOTE: When touch screens are used, the "pointing device" is a
combination of the touch screen and the user's finger or stylus. On
most systems there is no pointer (on-screen visual indication)
associated with this type of pointing device.

-- Saying "most" is a bit strange. There might or might not be a
steady cursor, but it's certainly possible that there will be a
temporarily visible cursor for some time interval after the user
interacts with the device.

     A user agent mechanism for identifying a (possibly empty) range of
content that will be the implicit source or target for subsequent
operations. The selection may be used for a variety of purposes,
including for cut and paste operations, to designate a specific
element in a document for the purposes of a query, and as an
indication of point of regard, e.g. the matched results of a search
may be automatically selected. The selection should be highlighted in
a distinctive manner. On the screen, the selection may be highlighted
in a variety of ways, including through colors, fonts, graphics, and
magnification. When rendered using synthesized speech, the selection
may be highlighted through changes in pitch, speed, or prosody.

-- s/cut/cut, copy/g -- While some people may like to cut and paste,
others like to copy and paste, excluding copying seems strange. /g
here means apply globally...
-- "regard" is an odd word, perhaps "interest" or "note" ?
-- while it's possible for selection to be highlighted by changing
fonts, it's incredibly unlikely as doing so typically changes the
metrics of the selection which can affect layout - which is bad

split focus
     A state when the user could be confused because the input focus is
separated from something it is usually linked to, such as being at a
different place than the selection or similar highlighting, or has
been scrolled outside of the visible portion of the viewport.

-- Why does this definition exist? - it isn't a standard definition
and doesn't seem to match anything I've seen elsewhere, nor does it
appear to be used anywhere in the document. - perhaps "split the
user's focus" if you're going to invent a phrase.

globally, global configuration

-- there doesn't seem to be a definition of this...

     Pictorial content that is static (i.e.not moving or changing). See
also the definition of animation.

-- s/i.e.not/i.e. neither/; s/or/nor/

     This specification intentionally does not identify which
"important elements" must be navigable as this will vary by
specification. What constitutes "efficient navigation" may depend on a
number of factors as well, including the "shape" of content (e.g.,
sequential navigation of long lists is not efficient) and desired
granularity (e.g., among tables, then among the cells of a given
table). Refer to the Implementing document [Implementing UAAG 2.0] for
information about identifying and navigating important elements.

-- Implementing UAAG 2.0 isn't linked

     Direct Commands* (also called keyboard shortcuts or accelerator
keys) are those tied to particular UI controls or application
functions, allowing the user to navigate-to or activate them without
traversing any intervening controls (e.g., "ctrl"+"S" to save a
document). It is sometimes useful to distinguish direct commands that
are associated with controls that are rendered in the current context
(e.g., "alt"+"D" to move focus to the address bar) from those that may
be able to activate program functionality that is not associated with
any currently rendered controls (e.g., "F1" to open the Help system).
Direct commands help users accelerate their selections.

-- I'm not sure what "their" means in "their selections." - it might
be fixed by s/selections/selection/, but I really can't tell.

     In this document, the term "override" means that one configuration
or behavior preference prevails over another. Generally, the
requirements of this document involve user preferences prevailing over
author preferences and user agent default settings and behaviors.
Preferences may be multi-valued in general (e.g., the user prefers
blue over red or yellow), and include the special case of two values
(e.g., turn on or off blinking text content).

-- s/preferences and user/preferences, user/
-- s/, and include/ and includes/; s/two/only two/
-- s/turn/turning/; s/blinking/support for blinking/

         Placeholders should identify the technology of the object of
which it is holding the place.

-- If the UA is supplying a placeholder because it has no idea what
the type of content it's replacing is, then I don't think it makes
sense to require the UA to explain the technology it's replacing!

         (e.g., MSAA, UI Automation, and IAccessible2 for Windows
applications, AXAPI for MacOSX applications, Gnome Accessibility
Toolkit API for Gnome applications, Java Access for Java applications,
etc.).

-- s/MacOSX/Mac OS X/g
-- s/, etc.// or s/e.g., // - they're mutually exclusive

     A plug-in is a program that runs as part of the user agent and
that is not part of content. Users generally choose to include or
exclude plug-ins from their user agent.

-- What do you mean by "not part of content"?
-- s/include.*from/include plug-ins in or exclude them from/
-- While historically users chose to install Plug-ins, the reality is
that today many plug-ins install themselves without user intervention
either on their own or with the help of a useragent or other
distribution mechanism.

point of regard
     The point of regard is a position in rendered content that the
user is presumed to be viewing. The dimensions of the point of regard
may vary. For example, it may be a point (e.g., a moment during an
audio rendering or a cursor position in a graphical rendering), or a
range of text (e.g., focused text), or a two-dimensional area (e.g.,
content rendered through a two-dimensional graphical viewport). The
point of regard is almost always within the viewport, but it may
exceed the spatial or temporal dimensions of the viewport (see the
definition of rendered content for more information about viewport
dimensions). The point of regard may also refer to a particular moment
in time for content that changes over time (e.g., an audio-only
presentation). User agents may determine the point of regard in a
number of ways, including based on viewport position in content,
content focus, and selection. The stability of the point of regard is
addressed by @@.

-- regard isn't defined anywhere and as I noted earlier, it's odd.
Focus and Interest are words that I recognize. I do not regard regard
as a commonly used or recognized word....
-- @@ ?

     Any user agent initiated request for a decision or piece of
information from users.

-- s/users/a user/

         Formatting depends on a number of factors, including where the
document is rendered: on screen, on paper, through loudspeakers, on a
braille display, or on a mobile device.

-- s/through loudspeakers, on a braille display, or on a mobile
device./on a braille display, on a mobile device, through
loudspeakers, etc./

         The value given to a property by a user agent at installation
is called the property's default value.

-- If a useragent says "b { font-weight: bold }", that isn't a value
that a useragent gives to a property, there isn't a property until
there's an element in a document. There is a style, but no property.
The property that people care about is the one that is computed for a
given element in an actual DOM tree. - Perhaps "The value of a
property of an element that is otherwise unstyled by the document
author is the default value"? But I'm not sure how this is useful.

     Rendered content is the part of content that the user agent makes
available to the user's senses of sight and hearing (and only those
senses for the purposes of this document).

-- If I print a document using a monochrome laser printer and give it
to a blind person, I've given that person a rendered document, and
that person can use the sense of touch to perceive it. You're
explicitly excluding this case. Why? (Sure, it isn't an ideal
rendering, and perhaps modern laser printers are less friendly to this
use case than classic laser printers, but it definitely has been
possible to feel printed content even if it wasn't Braille.)

         The user agent will be able to recognize some information in a
script by virtue of implementing the scripting language or a known
program library (e.g., the user agent is expected to recognize when a
script will open a viewport or retrieve a resource from the Web).

-- I don't think it's reasonable to expect a UA to understand *why* a
script is opening a viewport. It's possible that the script wants to
show the user cached content. It could be that the script is trying to
get the user to download a resource to disk. It could be that the
remote resource has changed and now it's doing something that the
script isn't expecting.

         Generally, user agents limit the type of content that may be
selected to text content (e.g., one or more fragments of text).

-- Most UAs allow one to select images too. Whether one can do much of
value to them is another story, but they're typically selectable. Form
items otoh may not be usefully selectable for the purposes of
serialization, but that's another story.

         In this document, each viewport is expected to have at most
one selection.

-- I hope you're aware that a selection may be discontinuous

         When several viewports coexist, at most one viewport's
selection responds to input events; this is called the current
selection.

-- I've seen user agents which allow selections to span documents...

         Some examples of serial access include listening to an audio
stream or watching a video (both of which involve one temporal
dimension), or reading a series of lines of braille one line at a time
(one spatial dimension).

-- s/braille/Braille/g ?, I believe it's a proper noun, the document
appears inconsistent.

text format
     Any media object given an Internet media type of "text" (e.g.,
"text/plain", "text/html", or "text/*") as defined in RFC 2046
[RFC2046], section 4.1, or any media object identified by Internet
media type to be an XML document (as defined in [XML], section 2) or
SGML application. Refer, for example, to Internet media types defined
in "XML Media Types" [RFC3023].

-- I'm not sure that I'd call an SVG document a "text format".

track (audio track or visual track)
     Content rendered as sound through an audio viewport. The audio
track may be all or part of the audio portion presentation (e.g., each
instrument may have a track, or each stereo channel may have a track).
Also see definition of visual track

-- s/of visual track/of visual track./
-- The definition doesn't make sense, the heading clearly includes
video track but the definition clearly excludes it.

     User agent default styles are style property values applied in the
absence of any author or user styles

-- s/author/applicable author/ - just because an author has some
styles doesn't mean some user agent styles won't also apply...

         HTML 4 [HTML4] does not specify default styles for HTML
documents, but the CSS 2 [CSS2] specification suggests a sample
default style sheet for HTML 4 based on current practice.

-- I don't think referencing CSS2 makes sense, perhaps HTML5 [2]
instead (I'm sure you can find an equivalent w3.org link)?

       The document distinguishes them only where required for clarity.
For more information, see the section on requirements for content, for
user agent features, or both @@.

-- s/The/This/
-- @@?

         When several viewports coexist, only one has the current focus
at a given moment. This viewport is highlighted to make it stand out.

-- The active viewport may or may not be highlighted, unless you mean
"highlighted" in the generic sense including the possibility of "no
visible change".

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/voice-dialog-reqs/
[2] 
http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/rendering.html

Received on Friday, 8 July 2011 15:23:00 UTC