Draft Comment for Discussion -- a11y-review issue 232

Colleagues:

I'm a bit weak on the mechanics of editing a github issue, so am posting
my proposed draft text here.

Last week I agreed to further refine our proposed comments on
a11y-review issue 232:

https://github.com/w3c/a11y-review/issues/232

I'm proposing an additional paragraph to account for last week's
teleconference discussion as denoted below:

<begin issue text>
In reviewing "how audio is rendered and interacts with other audio" in
the Audio Session API https://www.w3.org/TR/audio-session/#abstract, APA
are concerned with implications for audio generated by TTS--which could
be AT generated audio in a user's environment. We see no mention of TTS
in the spec.

Did we miss it? Clearly any AT use of TTS would make that audio the most
critical audio to the user.  Should we be concerned?  Should the API
call out TTS as of particular sensitivity, do we then risk user privacy
concerns?

<proposed new paragraph begins>
Of course most, though not all AT is provided and managed by the OS,
obviating privacy concerns. Audio in AT is not limited to TTS however.
Also, there are additional uses of audio for accessibility reasons. One
key use is a short distinctive audio compositions used as signage to
signal a specific event to the user in a manner that communicates far
more quickly than TTS, allowing TTS to function as a confirmation. These
short audio compositions generally come as sets of files and are mapped
to common events (such as dialog popups) , and are known variously as
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earcon](auditory icons,</a> or more
descriptively as <q>Sonicons</q> or <q>Earcons.</q> At a minimum APA
considers that developers should be aware of this wider use of audio.
Certainly, when it's web-based AT, specific considerations would then
pertain.

BTW:  Your API publication has caused us to reconsider our
self-assessment questionnaire.  It should have exposed questions such as
these! Consequently we'll now be adding audio-related self-assessment
questions as we revamp our tooling.
	     
-- 

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 Wednesday, 28 May 2025 12:24:04 UTC