Accessibility Review of: Web Publications for the Open Web Platform: Vision And Technical Challenges

Accessibility Review of: Web Publications for the Open Web Platform: Vision
And Technical Challenges

(https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/)


Use of images:

While all of the images provided in this document have appropriate
alternative text, the diagrams and flow-charts lack an extended description
explaining the purpose and key-point of the illustration. For example, the
first image contains the following alt text:


[image: Inline image 1]

*[Figure 1: alt text reads "Image showing a collection of resources,
surrounded by a dotted line, and an arrow pointing at that dotted line"]*

Not provided however is what those resources are, nor how they are further
related. Even a review of the SVG image exposes the ‘text’ embedded in the
image, but there is no explanation of why the elements are in a dotted
circle, etc.

*Recommendation: all complex graphics should also include an extended
description.*


Personalization

*2.1.7 Presentation Control and Personalization *

*When reading long-form (and sometimes mission-critical) publications,
personalization—i.e., the ability for users to adapt the presentation to
suit their needs—is of a great importance. While technologies such as CSS
Media Queries have come a long way in terms of adapting content to devices,
this is not the same thing as adapting to a user. Presentation control
features are available in various user agents for publications today. For
example, many offer the possibility to dynamically change font size or
background/foreground color schemes, or even adopt accessible presentations
needed for dsylexia
<https://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2012/text-customization/r14>. Unfortunately,
today's implementations are brittle and limited due to the lack of an
underlying framework that explicitly supports user adaptation.*

*Web Publications <https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/#dfn-web-publication> need to
incorporate an explicit framework for achieving advanced and predictable
user-triggered presentation control. (Note that from this perspective,
accessibility can be seen just a radical case of personalization.)*


This appears related to work happening in the ARIA / COGA TF around *COGA
Semantics to Enable Personalization *(
https://w3c.github.io/personalization-semantics/)



*Recommendation: if the Digital Publishing Interest Group have not already
been in communication with this activity it is highly recommended that both
groups explore coordination efforts.*





Spelling and Grammar issues:

The 1.3 Terminology <https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/#terminology> section
provides some conceptual framework for the technical discussion. The most
important definition is the one of Web Publications
<https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/#dfn-web-publication>: the fact that a WP, i.e.,
a single Web Resource, identifies a *collection* of Web Resources
<https://www.w3.org/TR/pwp/#dfn-web-resource> that conveys the
“boundedness” which characterizes a publication (e.g. a book or an
article). All technical issues in this section are, fundamentally, around
the question on how this boundedness should co-exist with the opennes of
the Web in general.


Conclusion:

As a general vision document and NOT a technical specification, it achieves
the goal of explaining both the direction this Interest Group seeks to
pursue, as well as outlines some of the known challenges and technology
gaps that still exist. As a work in progress it is a clear indication of
where the Interest Group is today, and a review of this document suggests
that the Interest Group has an awareness and sympathetic understanding of
potential issues and concerns that would impact the accessibility of Web
Publications.


JF

-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion