Re: Lack of AT implementors participation (was Comments on IRC log)

On Jul 29, 2007, at 10:12 PM, Robert Burns wrote:

>
>
> On Jul 29, 2007, at 9:09 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:
>
>>
>> At 08:56 +0900 UTC, on 2007-07-30, Karl Dubost wrote:
>>
>>> Le 28 juil. 2007 à 03:39, Sander Tekelenburg a écrit :
>>>> I've suggested before that perhaps the chairs can actively approach
>>>> those parties to get them involved. I haven't seen a response to  
>>>> that. I
>>>> don't know if that means my suggestion went by unnoticed, was  
>>>> dimissed for
>>>> whatever reason, or is being acted upon? :)
>>>
>>> AT as in Authoring Tools and/or Assistive Technologies
>>
>> I meant Assistive Technologies, sorry.
>>
>> We have a list of developers of Assitive Technolgies in the wiki:
>> <http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/UAs>.
>
> Quickly looking at the list I would say we have some of the few key  
> representative participating already. The screen reader  
> representation might be a challenge since it is often focussed on  
> other tasks than HTML and CSS. However, we have Apple and Microsoft  
> represented: both making screen readers of varying abilities.  
> Representation by Freedom Scientific (JAWS), Dolphin (HAL),  
> Emacspeak, Orca, and WindowEyes would be nice.
>
> In terms of aural browsing, Opera, IBM (Home Page Reader  
> (discontinued)) and Fire Vox are probably among the leaders: all  
> represented in our WG. For aural browsers, Emacspeak is probably  
> the only missing contender.
>
> Obviously, we may not always have representatives from these  
> companies that are involved with those areas of the business, but  
> the companies/projects themselves are represented.

My apologies, but I missed Emacspeak. We already have participation  
from the Emacspeak author / originator within our WG. It's possible  
I'm missing some others too. Freedom Scientific, Dolphin, Orca,  
WindowEyes would be the only other big screen reader players we might  
be missing. It looks to me like we have the major aural browser  
players already participating. Getting some of the screen readers  
interested in our WG is probably a similar problem to getting those  
players interested in providing extra support for aural browsing:  
i.e., going beyond "screen" reading. IIRC, these screen readers  
(other than Emacspeak) often do not do too much specifically with web  
content other than read what can be displayed visually on the screen.  
For example, Apple's VoiceOver does not really integrate too tightly  
with the browser and the DOM as we've discussed in previous threads.

Also, remember that Josh has graciously offered to make his testing  
facilities available to our WG [1] for testing some of the major  
screen readers and aural browsers. It would be helpful if someone  
(not necessarily our WG) has documented screen reader and aural  
browser support (by version and release date, etc) for various HTML  
and CSS features. HTML features would be like support for fallback in  
OBJECT, CANVAS, VIDEO, AUDIO, (and IMG in XML), @longdesc, @alt,  
TABLE@summary, TD@abbr, TH@abbr, TD@scope, TH@scope, TD@headers,  
TH@axis, TD@axis, TD@headers, ABBR and ACRONYM pronunciation support  
and many other features (form and UI related, @role support, etc.).

Take care,
Rob

[1]: <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Jul/1059.html>

Received on Monday, 30 July 2007 06:49:53 UTC