Seeking Clarification on Issue #325

Hi everyone,

Please forgive me for my confusion, but at the end of the COGA call today,
we were discussing GitHub issue #325
<https://github.com/w3c/coga/issues/325> and Phil's comment. As part of our
discussion, we moved into the possible use of AI to support summaries,
etc., but I don't think that was the point Phil was trying to make.

I believe he was pointing out that we have a general lack of information
about the impact of browsers and assistive technologies (user agents) on
COGA objectives and patterns. I think he's wanting us to clarify what an
author can do and what an author should be aware of in terms of how people
might access their content with the support of user agents.

Maybe I am completely misunderstanding what Phil was saying, but here is
how I think we might want to structure our discussion around this issue and
his comment:

   - What are the possible impacts of user agents?
      - Browsers
         - What are the existing cognitive supports in Browsers and what
         are their limitations?
         - Are there any broad assumptions we can make about universal
         browser supports that will do some of the work we are asking
authors to do?
         - Should we add brief guidance at the objective level or the
         pattern level about browser capabilities that authors should
be aware of?
      - Assistive Technologies (AT)
         - Acknowledge that people use various types of assistive
         technologies to access content (e.g. 3rd-party tools to
support inputs and
         outputs - reading and writing, etc.)
            - What are the potential implications of AT use on COGA
            objectives and patterns?
            - How are people with multiple disabilities impacted -
            especially if they are using assistive technologies
disabilities other than
            cognitive, but also need cognitive supports (e.g. a
totally blind person
            who is also dyslexic)?
            - What should authors know and how will this knowledge impact
            how they design content? How will this vary across
different languages and
            cultures?
            - Should we add brief guidance at the objective level or the
            pattern level about assistive technologies that authors
should be aware of?
         - Can we / should we consider AI to be a type of AT for people
         with cognitive disabilities - to Rain's excellent points, I think our
         guidance should be to proceed with extreme caution, but AT is
very personal
         and means something different for each person. The reality is
that people
         are already using AI as a cognitive support to some degree,
which is why I
         believe we will eventually need to provide guidance on AI's
limitations and
         point out both the positive and negative outcomes for people
with cognitive
         disabilities. At a minimum, I think we need to be able to
articulate the
         cognitive skills that are required for effective prompting
and recognizing
         hallucinations because there will be unique struggles with
these tasks for
         people with various types of cognitive disabilities.
         - Possible impact of AI in general

Please let me know if I am missing the mark.

Many thanks,

*Jan McSorley*
*Accessibility Consultant*
*512-731-7957 (mobile)*
linkedin.com/in/janmcsorley <https://www.linkedin.com/in/janmcsorley>

*We put a man on the moon in the 1960's. Surely we can make information
technology fully accessible to people with disabilities. It can be done. It
must be done. It will be done!*