Re: Proposal for support personlization AA from John, Chris, Jan and myself

Hi David,

> I'm speaking about the proposal from yesterday to strip the COGA
semantics out of AA.

To be pedantically clear, there really isn't such a thing as formal Coga
Semantics today - we have an incomplete draft spec that may or may not
advance to Rec status at the W3C. It is my hope and desire that it *DOES*
advance, but we have no guarantee that it will. As such, we've pulled
things back a bit to a requirement (at AAA) for using a *public metadata
schema* (which could include schema.org, Dublin Core, or others, including
the draft COGA Semantics). The key is that the metadata values are public,
so that machines can do the "look-up" of the fixed values sets.


> 3.3.2 Labels or Instructions: Labels or instructions are provided when
content requires user input.

The current proposal at AA is to now to ask for more: 3.3.2. asks for
either a Label OR Instructions, whereas going forward we want both (Labels
AND Instructions), and that the instructions be programmatically linked to
the control today (i.e. "proximity" alone is insufficient).

We also reiterate consistency, because in the absence of a public taxonomy,
we want a consistent use of concepts across the site (or in the case of a
large corporation with multiple sites, across all of their properties).
Yes, there is some overlap here, but is that a bad thing?

We can go around and around on what the 4th piece of information is called,
but in essence the request at AA going forward is for the following
(borrowing heavily from ARIA):

Volume Slider:


   - Role: Volume
   - Property: Slider
   - State: 50%
   - *(Purpose):* Use this slider to make it louder or quieter

<h3 id="volume" class="label">Volume Slider</h3>
    <div class="aria-widget-slider">
      <div class="rail" style="width: 300px;">
        <div id="VolumeValue"
           role="slider"
           tabindex="0"
           class="thumb"
           aria-valuemin="0"
           aria-valuenow="50%"
           aria-valuemax="100%"
           aria-labelledby="volume"
           aria-describedby="explanation">
      </div>
<p id="explanation">Use this slider to make it louder or quieter</p>

<!*** Note, this is a ham-fisted example, but it is illustrative. The
"Purpose" prose could also be provided via a contextual modal dialog (using
an on-screen icon for example [image: Inline image 3]), using @title, etc.
***>

</div>

At AAA, when we can get the right semantic taxonomy in place, we'll have a
standardized means of converting "Purpose" to, for example, icons ([image:
Inline image 1]), which is the ultimate goal.

However because we cannot accomplish this at scale today, the AA
requirement is asking for an equivalency of sorts, by saying that above and
beyond the "Label" you MUST furnish some basic information about how or why
you would use the control, and that this information is explicitly &
programmatically linked to the control, so that a machine today could, at a
minimum, surface all instructions to all widgets deterministically.

It isn't perfect, far from it, but it also provides a very real learning
opportunity in the early days for teaching the wider community about the
actual need of the target constituency, but via existing tools and methods
today. Note that at AA we do not preclude the use of metadata, only that it
is not an actual requirement to do so (but through the Understanding and
Techniques documents we hope to show that using metadata is actually the
best technique to use, while still recognizing that the metadata solution
today remains quite immature, so we provide other alternatives towards
meeting the need: "I know what this is, but what am I supposed to do with
it?")

Think of it as a half-step towards what is really desired, but what is
really desired today cannot be achieved at scale, so half a step is better
than no step at all.

JF




On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 5:08 AM, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> >> I don't think "consistency" is a new concept in 2.1.
>
> ​...
>
> ​> ​
> ​...
> my suggestion of aiming it at cross-site consistency with a core-set of
> terms is used, that is something different.
>
>
> Yes, I agree, I should probably be more clear. I'm speaking about the
> proposal from yesterday to strip the COGA semantics out of AA. This I think
> is too general, doesn't accomplish much and is largely covered by 3.2.4,
> and 3.3.2. "In content implemented using markup languages, the purpose of
> conventional controls[1] can be consistently, programmatically determined
> across a set of web pages."
>
> I think
> ​at AA we need to look at​
>  a cut back version of COGA (along with some HTML5 and ARIA attribute
> ​ values​
> ).
> ​ I think we are riffing in the same key.​
>
>
> Cheers,
> David MacDonald
>
>
>
> *Can**Adapt* *Solutions Inc.*
>
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>
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> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100>
>
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>
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>
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>
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> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 4:48 AM, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
> wrote:
>
>> David wrote:
>>
>> > I don't think "consistency" is a new concept in 2.1.
>>
>> > 3.2.4 Consistent Identification: Components that have the same
>> functionality within a set of Web pages are identified consistently. (Level
>> AA)
>>
>>  ​
>>
>> That’s a good point, however, if my suggestion of aiming it at cross-site
>> consistency with a core-set of terms is used, that is something different.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>
>>
>> -Alastair
>>
>> ​
>>
>>
>>
>
>


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

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion