XAUR and signing avatars clarification request

Hi Wendy,

Regarding your comment that signing avatars are not currently 
recommended. I've read the WFD recommendation and now better understand 
the distinction between live and interactive signing with an experienced 
interpreter, vs the use of an automated signing avatar. I also 
understand the need for quality parsing and translation via a real 
person particularly in live situations. I do however see a potential 
benefit for Deaf and hard of hearing people from the use of signing 
avatars for pre-recorded, text transformation or non-interactive 
communication. [1] [2] [3]

I'm wondering if you think this would be acceptable and useful to keep 
in the XAUR, if we were explicit about its use only in certain contexts? 
For example,  we can explicitly distinguish between 'live signing' and 
the use of signing avatars only for pre-recorded and non interactive 
communication in XR. Would this be agreeable/useful do you think?

I'm also wondering if we changed the user need to  'Audio and Text 
Transformations' - that could broaden the user need, to cover not just 
text description but also  non-interactive signing? I'm thinking it 
could be good. Therefore editing the requirement to now be:

*REQ 10a:* Allow pre-recorded audio or object and item text descriptions 
to be presented to the user via a signing avatar.

We could also add a note - to say that signing avatars are not deemed 
suitable replacements for live or interactive communication, we could 
reference the WFD statement?

Would all this be closer to something useful?

Thoughts welcome - thanks in advance

Josh

[1] Deaf and signing issues: Signing Avatar [XAUR] #168 
https://github.com/w3c/apa/issues/168
[2] 
https://raw.githack.com/w3c/apa/6d5bf713d9d7c65ecda104c213ad47b0e98cfbe1/xaur/index.html#text-description-transformation
[3] 
https://wfdeaf.org/news/resources/wfd-wasli-statement-use-signing-avatars/

-- 
Emerging Web Technology Specialist/Accessibility (WAI/W3C)