Re: DPUB Interest Group | Accessibility review of Open Annotations - Action Item

Hi Rich and all,

Thanks for this!

My immediate concern is a mismatch in expectations about the scope of the
accessibility for annotations.  Your comments all seem fair, but only take
into account one usage scenario and implementation strategy -- a reading
system displaying an EPUB with inline annotations on text only, where the
fact that the span is an annotation is considered important to record in
that content.  One could imagine that as the annotations will be supplied
externally to the epub, that there will be many different implementations,
each of which would be able to address accessibility /before/ manipulating
the content to be rendered for the user.

I certainly agree with your third bullet, as an implementation neutral
constraint.  Did you have any opinions on how well this issue is addressed
by the use of CSS styles within the annotation model?

Many thanks,

Rob




On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Richard Schwerdtfeger <schwer@us.ibm.com>wrote:

> Hi Robert,
>
> I did a quick review for accessibility of Open Annotations. All
> annotations done are ultimately going to be applied to an ePub document
> through some form of rendering otherwise, the reader will not know what the
> annotations look like (I know obvious).
>
> In order to ensure that we have an accessible solution we are going to
> have to do the following:
>
>    - Translate the annotation into content markup within the book. This
>    will require ARIA extensions for things like: (indicating the start and end
>    of a highlight), the identification of content that is linked to a Note or
>    a description - not unlike what is being done by the Diagram project; and
>    bookmark. I don't think any of this introduces new concepts from a content
>    perspective with respect to ARIA. For example we have an aria-invalid state
>    that is a global attribute that we can apply to any element. It currently
>    takes as a value "grammar" and "spelling". This would produce a run of text
>    having a common set of attributes that would be mapped to platform
>    accessibility API as text properties:
>    This is a <span aria-invalid="spelling">speling</span> error. So we
>    could specify different types of annotations: <span
>    aria-annotation="highlight" aria-author="name">. Note: we might link to an
>    author's vcf file and render it on request or simply render the user's name
>    from the vcf file or a combination.
>    - Additionally for thinks like Notes: we could make use of
>    aria-describedat in ARIA 1.1 and reference a description from anywhere in
>    the book e.g.: <svg aria-describedat="foo"><circle>...</svg>. We would then
>    need to define user agent extensions (we could implement in Readium) that
>    would highlight the object to indicate that more information was available
>    and then allow interactively request the description to be shown in a
>    separate dialog/windows, etc.
>    - We need to address highlights operating in a high contrast
>    situation. We should be able to programmatically tweak style sheets to
>    ensure that the highlights are still readily visible and the text is visible
>
>
> So, I think the current specification has what you need to generate the
> visible annotations but I think we then need to translate to document
> markup with styling, etc and we need to define implementation requirements
> for open annotation rendering and enablement for use by assistive
> technologies. This would be some sort of user agent mappiing/implementation
> guide.
>
> We might be able to tackle some of this in the new ePub module being
> defined for ARIA providing we have a user agent implementation guide to go
> with it. Readium could build this into their SDKs and readium.js. We could
> create an implemenation guide for Readium ePub reader developers.
>  Obviously these changes are not limited to ePub that seems to be one of
> the first places to do early implementations.
>
> More detailed work would need to be done in an ARIA subteam - probably as
> a collaboration between dpub members, readium members, and DPUB interest
> group participants.
>
> Has anyon formalized how to render annotations at this point?
>
> Rich
>
> Rich Schwerdtfeger
>
> [image: Inactive hide details for Robert Sanderson ---01/28/2014 10:56:50
> AM---Dear all, A couple of introductory presentations that ma]Robert
> Sanderson ---01/28/2014 10:56:50 AM---Dear all, A couple of introductory
> presentations that may be useful to get up to
>
> From: Robert Sanderson <azaroth42@gmail.com>
> To: Markus Gylling <markus.gylling@gmail.com>
> Cc: Suzanne Taylor <suzanne.taylor@pearson.com>, Richard
> Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, Gerardo Capiel <gerardoc@benetech.org>,
> George Kerscher <kerscher@montana.com>, Thea Eaton <thea@doodledoo.com>
> Date: 01/28/2014 10:56 AM
> Subject: Re: DPUB Interest Group | Summary of Annotations Comments Task |
> Due Feb 5
> ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> A couple of introductory presentations that may be useful to get up to
> speed with Open Annotation:
>
> High level presentation:
>     *http://www.slideshare.net/azaroth42/oai8-openanno*<http://www.slideshare.net/azaroth42/oai8-openanno>
>
> Core Data Model:
>
> *http://www.slideshare.net/azaroth42/open-annotation-core-data-model-tutorial*<http://www.slideshare.net/azaroth42/open-annotation-core-data-model-tutorial>
>
> And if there's questions, I'm very happy to either reply by email or have
> a conference call to walk through some of the points.
>
> Many thanks :)
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 8:15 AM, Markus Gylling <
> *markus.gylling@gmail.com* <markus.gylling@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>    Adding Rob Sanderson, co-chair of OA CG to the thread. Rich, Rob was
>    the one who offered you help re introducing you to OA at the end of the
>    call yesterday.
>    /markus
>
>
>    On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 12:41 AM, Suzanne Taylor <
>    *suzanne.taylor@pearson.com* <suzanne.taylor@pearson.com>> wrote:
>       Thanks:
>
>
>
>       ------------------------------
>
>       *From:* Richard Schwerdtfeger [mailto:*schwer@us.ibm.com*<schwer@us.ibm.com>]
>
> * Sent:* Monday, January 27, 2014 2:42 PM
> * To:* Suzanne Taylor
> * Cc:* Gerardo Capiel; George Kerscher; Markus Gylling; Thea Eaton
> * Subject:* Re: DPUB Interest Group | Summary of Annotations Comments
>       Task | Due Feb 5
>
>
>
>       Hi Suzanne,
>
>       Thank you. There was a Bill something on the call today. Do you
>       have his email information.
>
>       [Suzanne Taylor:]
>
>       Probably Bill Kasdorf (*bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com*<bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com>
>       )
>
>       We need to look at the open annotation work for additional
>       accessibility issues. For example, did they alot for multiple people being
>       identified as annotators and which annotations apply to whom? What about
>       Notes? There are cross-cutting opportunities here for things like online
>       interactive office documents. We address some of this in IBM Docs but it is
>       not as standardized. We would want this work to be such that annotations be
>       spareable across a cloud - which I am sure the annotation people have
>       already considered.
>
>       [Suzanne Taylor:] Ah, very important! So it's not just do the
>       things being proposed as standards include accessibility, but also a push
>       for more things to be part of standardization to get past reliance on
>       proprietary solutions, which are often not accessible.
>
>
>
>       The first problem I found was with the <mark> element. The HTML5
>       platform accessibility API mapping guide maps <mark> to text which does not
>       convey a lot about the fact that it is highlighted to an assistive
>       technology. The HTML A11y task force people responsible for mapping never
>       completed the work. We will be starting that work back up. Here is a link
>       to first drafts of outlines for three interoperability specs we will be
>       creating:
>
>       I drafted these:
>
>
>       *http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/wiki/Outline_Core_User_Agent_Implementation_Guide#Core_User_Agent_Implementation_Guide*<http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/wiki/Outline_Core_User_Agent_Implementation_Guide#Core_User_Agent_Implementation_Guide>
>
>       If you look at the current implementation guide spec for <map> you
>       will see the current defined mapping:
> *http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-html-aapi-20120329/*<http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-html-aapi-20120329/>
>
>       We will need one for the ePub structural semantics as well. This
>       may require platform accessibility API extensions. We will see.
>
>       Rich
>
>
>
>       Rich Schwerdtfeger
>
>       [image: Inactive hide details for Suzanne Taylor ---01/27/2014
>       11:26:43 AM---This is just a note to summarize the deliverable that Rich]Suzanne
>       Taylor ---01/27/2014 11:26:43 AM---This is just a note to summarize the
>       deliverable that Rich, Gerardo and I accepted in the meeting to
>
>       From: Suzanne Taylor <*suzanne.taylor@pearson.com*<suzanne.taylor@pearson.com>
>       >
>       To: Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS, George Kerscher <
>       *kerscher@montana.com* <kerscher@montana.com>>, Gerardo Capiel <
>       *gerardoc@benetech.org* <gerardoc@benetech.org>>, Thea Eaton <
>       *thea@doodledoo.com* <thea@doodledoo.com>>
>       Cc: Markus Gylling <*markus.gylling@gmail.com*<markus.gylling@gmail.com>
>       >
>       Date: 01/27/2014 11:26 AM
>       Subject: DPUB Interest Group | Summary of Annotations Comments Task
>       | Due Feb 5
>
>       ------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>       This is just a note to summarize the deliverable that Rich, Gerardo
>       and I accepted in the meeting today to make sure everyone knows what's
>       taking place and also to make the documents easier to find.
>
>       The Annotations Taskforce of the DPUB IG is looking to publish a
>       note by April.
>
>       So, their use cases will move forward rapidly. Our task is to
>       review the following with a view toward ensuring that accessibility is
>       considered as part of the whole:
>
>       - We need to edit and expand on this use case on accessibility
>          requirements generally and move (or copy) it from the accessibility section
>          to the annotations section:
>          *http://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/Mark_Highlighting*<http://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/Mark_Highlighting> (we
>          could expand into multiple use cases, if we want)
>          - We need to review the annotations use cases and add any
>          accessibility comments. These are here:
>          *http://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/UseCase_Directory#Social_Reading_and_Annotations*<http://www.w3.org/dpub/IG/wiki/UseCase_Directory#Social_Reading_and_Annotations>
>
>          - This seems to be a key document to also review:
>          *http://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/*<http://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/>
>          I haven't read this yet, so I'm not 100% sure what we need to do with it,
>          if anything, at this point. It might just be good background.
>
>
>
>       The accessibility comments are due Feb 5th and the Interest Group
>       will look for interest group buy-in in the call on Feb 10th.
>
>       Thanks,
>       Suzanne
>
>
> * Suzanne Taylor*
>       Director, Accessibility Solutions
>       Pearson UX
>
>       T: *(201)236-7781* <%28201%29236-7781>
>
> * Pearson *
>       Always Learning
>       Learn more at *www.pearson.com* <http://www.pearson.com/>
>
>
>       Can all learners use your product? Make sure: Pearson's
>       Accessibility Guidelines for Digital Learning
>       *http://wps.pearsoned.com/accessibility*<http://wps.pearsoned.com/accessibility>
>
>
>
>
>