- From: Martin J. Dürst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>
- Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2025 18:20:09 +0900
- To: 村田真 <founder@info-a11y.jp>, Addison Phillips <addisoni18n@gmail.com>
- Cc: public-i18n-core@w3.org
I will also arrive in Kobe on Sunday. Don't know yet when exactly (that's the advantage of being 'in the area'). Looking forward to meet everybody. Regards, Martin. On 2025-11-07 12:30, 村田真 wrote: > I stupidly thought that the meeting would be held tonight. My apologies! > > I will arrive in Kobe on Sunday. If people would like to speak with me, I > will be available. > > Regards, > Makoto > > > > 2025年11月5日(水) 8:08 Addison Phillips <addisoni18n@gmail.com>: > >> Thank you, Makoto-san. Adding to our agenda. >> >> >> -------- Forwarded Message -------- >> Subject: Ruby accessibility gap in WCAG and upcoming proposal for WCAG 2.3 >> Resent-Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2025 23:06:30 +0000 >> Resent-From: public-i18n-core@w3.org >> Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2025 07:15:43 +0900 >> From: 村田真 <founder@info-a11y.jp> <founder@info-a11y.jp> >> To: Internationalization Working Group <public-i18n-core@w3.org> >> <public-i18n-core@w3.org> >> >> Dear I18N WG colleagues, >> >> In yesterday’s AG WG call, I realized something that I had not fully >> appreciated before: PDF documents are fully within scope for WCAG. Given >> that, I want to raise an issue that is both technical and architectural, >> and is highly relevant to our group’s charter. >> >> As you know, Japanese, Chinese, and some other writing systems require >> ruby annotations to convey reading information that is essential for >> comprehension. >> However, WCAG currently includes no success criterion that ensures that >> the relationship between base text and ruby annotations is preserved. >> >> In HTML, this relationship is generally preserved through the ruby markup >> model. But in PDF, ruby is often represented as a separate line of text, >> resulting in a complete loss of semantic association, making the document >> effectively unreadable for users relying on assistive technologies. >> >> Meanwhile, ISO 32000-2 (PDF 2.0) defines a correct ruby annotation >> structure, and PDF/UA includes guidance aligned with it. I l learned from >> somebody in Adobe that their implementations fully support such >> correct structures.. So the missing piece is not technical capability, but >> rather the absence of a requirement in WCAG that would ensure this >> association must be preserved. >> >> I intend to propose a new success criterion in WCAG 2.3 requiring that >> content preserve the explicit parent–ruby relationship in a way that allows >> user agents and assistive technologies to: >> >> - hide or show ruby, >> - adjust visual presentation (size, spacing, color), and >> - convey the association programmatically for TTS. >> >> Before drafting concrete wording, I plan to explain the rationale and show >> a short example in our call this Friday. >> After that, I will prepare a proposal text, and I would appreciate the >> Working Group’s feedback before submitting it to AG WG. >> >> I believe this can be a constructive and important contribution from I18N >> WG to WCAG 2.3, addressing a longstanding architectural gap. >> >> Best regards, >> Makoto >> > -- Prof. Dr.sc. Martin J. Dürst Department of Intelligent Information Technology College of Science and Engineering Aoyama Gakuin University Fuchinobe 5-1-10, Chuo-ku, Sagamihara 252-5258 Japan
Received on Friday, 7 November 2025 10:33:15 UTC