Re: Progress on the prototype authoring tool

Thanks for these good points, Russell. We absolutely do need to get our
terminology (and documentation) right for all stakeholder audiences.
Reading your comments makes me realize I'm currently very focussed on
explaining the value of our technology for content authors who need to
know why they might want to add those attrib-aac=XXXX values into their
content.

Janina

Russell Galvin writes:
>    Hi Matthew,
>    The authoring tool looks good! I ran it on several display formats at
>    responsivetesttool.com and it passed all with flying colours.
>    Regarding 'concept' vs 'symbol', I don't think it should be one or the
>    other as they are not strictly interchangeable. The symbol is a graphic
>    that represents the concept whereas the concept is the mental model we
>    have of it. They are both appropriate in the correct context. I would
>    say that your explanatory text in the UI has a pretty good mix of the
>    two terms.
>    An alternative might be to use something like 'concept-graphic' or
>    'concept-representation'. Of course, the text that accompanies the
>    symbol is also a concept-representation so you might just be making
>    things more confusing using that.
>    The term 'symbol' is widely used in the AAC world. Vendors such as
>    Mayer-Johnson, Tobii Dynavox, Widget, AssistiveWare and most others all
>    use symbol. The exception is Prentke-Romich who for many years were
>    quite strict about using 'icon' although I see that even they are
>    starting to use 'symbol' in some of their literature now that they have
>    merged with Saltillo and become employee-owned.
>    I know the target audience is not just AAC people but that is of course
>    where my thinking is focused.
>    Russell
> 
>    On 19/06/2023 7:07 p.m., Janina Sajka wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Matthew! Glad to hear this progress.
> 
> I agree that we're facilitating the communication of concepts, so prefer
> that term. Our (CR) spec facilitates the representation of a concept
> using some particular AAC symbol for the concept.
> 
> So, still concept, imo.
> 
> hth
> 
> Janina
> 
> 
> Matthew Atkinson writes:
> 
> Hi again, all,
> 
> I made some more improvements, and have a couple of questions...
> 
> 1. Removed the option to control whether symbols could be edited for all words,
> or just the words for which default suggestions were computed. Now all symbols a
> re editable, all of the time. This is much simpler.
> 
> 2. Updated documentation to reflect the above.
> 
> 3. Updated the styles used for the different states that a word might be in. Mad
> e the borders thicker, and therefore hopefully more easily discernible.
> 
> 4. Added information to the accessible name of each editable symbol to say what
> state it's in—I'd been meaning to add this, but forgot until now; oops! (If ther
> e is no symbol, instead of saying "(none)" it just leaves the state off; I can c
> hange that if preferred.) I would like to include the chosen context (text expla
> nation for the symbol used) as an accessible description, but I haven't implemen
> ted that yet.
> 
> 5. Decreased the size (height) of the symbols by 20%.
> 
> 6. Fixed (well, partly fixed) dialog appearance and usage on mobile. The editor
> is usable again on mobile, but there are uglinesses with respect to the dialogs.
>  One issue relates to a horizontal review comment we can weigh in on, regarding
> stopping the <body> scrolling when a <dialog> is open :-).
> 
> And a couple of questions...
> 
> A. Sometimes I have used the word 'symbol' and sometimes 'concept'; I think I ne
> ed to lean more towards the latter to be accurate. Do you agree?
> 
> B. If you have any concerns about the size of the symbols, let me know.
> 
> best regards,
> 
> 
> Matthew
> --
> Matthew Tylee Atkinson (he/him)
> --
> Principal Accessibility Engineer
> TPG Interactive
> [1]https://www.tpgi.com
> A Vispero Company
> [2]https://www.vispero.com
> --
> This message is intended to be confidential and may be legally privileged. It is
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> e delete this message from your system and notify us immediately.
> Any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken or omitted to be taken by
> an unintended recipient in reliance on this message is prohibited and may be unl
> awful.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 19/06/2023, 13:46, "Matthew Atkinson" <[3]matkinson@tpgi.com [4]<mailto:matk
> inson@tpgi.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
> CAUTION: This email originated outside Vispero. Do not click links, open attachm
> ents or forward unless you recognize the sender.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> I've made some significant changes since the last time this was demo'd, thanks a
> gain to Sharon for advising on some of these:
> 
> 
> * Switched to using <dialog> elements for changing the symbol for a given word,
> to make the tool behave more predictably. (This change you may've seen already,
> depending on when you last looked at the prototype.)
> 
> 
> * Fixed missing accessible names on the dialogs.
> 
> 
> * Inlined the stylesheets used by the custom elements, to try to avoid flashes o
> f unstyled content ("FOUC") when loading the symbols, which you may notice more
> prominently on mobile devices.
> 
> 
> * Ensured all of the symbol elements have the same height, even if the image is
> not loaded yet (again, mitigates against FOUC).
> 
> 
> There are one or two further UI tweaks I'd like to make, but I think it's nearly
>  ready to share. However, I would appreciate it if anyone in the group could try
>  this out, before we start to publicise it...
> 
> 
> [5]http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/adaptable-content-authoring-tool/editor/ [6]<http:
> //matatk.agrip.org.uk/adaptable-content-authoring-tool/editor/>
> 
> 
> best regards,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Matthew
> --
> Matthew Tylee Atkinson (he/him)
> --
> Principal Accessibility Engineer
> TPG Interactive
> [7]https://www.tpgi.com [8]<https://www.tpgi.com>
> A Vispero Company
> [9]https://www.vispero.com [10]<https://www.vispero.com>
> --
> This message is intended to be confidential and may be legally privileged. It is
>  intended solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, pleas
> e delete this message from your system and notify us immediately.
> Any disclosure, copying, distribution or action taken or omitted to be taken by
> an unintended recipient in reliance on this message is prohibited and may be unl
> awful.
> 
> References
> 
>    1. https://www.tpgi.com/
>    2. https://www.vispero.com/
>    3. mailto:matkinson@tpgi.com
>    4. mailto:matkinson@tpgi.com
>    5. http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/adaptable-content-authoring-tool/editor/
>    6. http://matatk.agrip.org.uk/adaptable-content-authoring-tool/editor/
>    7. https://www.tpgi.com/
>    8. https://www.tpgi.com/
>    9. https://www.vispero.com/
>   10. https://www.vispero.com/

-- 

Janina Sajka (she/her/hers)
Accessibility Consultant https://linkedin.com/in/jsajka

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Co-Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa

Linux Foundation Fellow
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/board-of-directors-2/

Received on Tuesday, 20 June 2023 15:06:43 UTC