Re: Proposed Set of Needs/Preferences for v1

Sangwhan Moon <smoon@opera.com> wrote on 02/06/2013 10:33:29 AM:

> From: Sangwhan Moon <smoon@opera.com>
> To: Indie UI <public-indie-ui@w3.org>,
> Date: 02/06/2013 10:42 AM
> Subject: Re: Proposed Set of Needs/Preferences for v1
>
>
> On Feb 6, 2013, at 11:30 PM, Andy Heath wrote:
>
> > Attached are the proposed preferences for V1 as promised.  They
> are distilled/smplified from the IMS AfA 3.0 preferences.  A very
> few small ones added. Apologies for the slight lateness and for the
> zip file but it was tricky to maintain the style sheets/macros used
> in editing the document without doing that.
>
> I've reviewed the document for the last hour, and must point out
> that almost none of
> these preferences are available on a user agent level
> implementation. Either they
> need to be propagated from the host OS or accessibility software.
> (in which case,
> introduces the question of "via what protocol?")
>

Sangwhan,


Most of these preferences do not require the OS platform to do anything as
they are focused on content. These are preferences that can be easily
exposed on a settings panel for a browser and passed to an AT - not unlike
the plethora of keyboard settings you have provided in Opera for mobility
impaired users. None of those settings required an OS modification.

I don't know of any operating system setting today that says that to turn
on captions in videos for example. That may be because I have not dug deep
enough.

Also, traditional accessibility we think of today is highly myopic in that
we think about screen readers, low vision uses, mobility impairments, and
to some degree hearing impaired with show sounds. There is nothing there
for learning and cognitive.

Furthermore, the web is dirty. We can't expect every solution to be a
perfect fit. We simply need to put the preference there and let them try to
satisfy it. When I kicked off ARIA there was no ARIA support in browsers
either but we have an entirely different situation today. When we met at
the face to face one of the things that was clear was that we really needed
preferences, in a reasonably short list, that would be easy to understand.
For example, Andy posted an example of an IPhone app. that provided a
simplified interface for ease of use.

I am currently involved with work with the Department of Education
involving inclusive learning. It is amazing how asking for the mobile phone
interface on a desktop computer (a simplified user interface) would satisfy
so many users with cognitive impairments. It also forces developers to do
better design. If you only have a limited amount of real estate you have to
be efficient in your user experience.

I am quite certain that Opera can handle putting in a setting that asks the
user if the user prefers content with a simplified user interface.

> At the moment, the only information that Opera (sorry for making
> Opera the example)
> can provide from this perspective is "screen reader active and
> exists?" = true | false.
> I don't think other browsers are significantly more advanced in this
> regard either.
>

I really don't know what to say to this comment. I think it depends which
browser you are talking about.

> Some operating systems provide this information on a system level,
> but not all OSes
> provide ways to determine this in a reliable manner. And for certain
> properties (e.g. tactile),
> I'm afraid there isn't a standardized way to know if such a device
> exists - making it quite
> challenging to implement for browser vendors.
>
I could live with tactile being out for this round. for the reasons I
responded to James about. We need an API to generate the vibrations.

> Would there be any possibility to revise this to a level where we
> have a common set
> of things that are readily available on at least the three major
> operating systems?
>
No. That is far, far too limiting. If the solution could be resolved by the
content provider it should be part of the solution as long as the concept
is not difficult to understand. Asking for captions or transcripts is not
hard. Asking for simplified content is not hard. We could easily provide
authoring guidance on this.

> --
> Sangwhan Moon, Opera Software ASA
>
> P.S. Will there be real "browser preferences" in the spec too?