Ascertaining the user's needs and preferences: implications for the spec

This is my action item from the last meeting.

Background

The mechanisms by which user agents acquire information about the user's needs
and preferences are outside the scope of the specification. However,
discussions within the working group have shown that the availability of
information to the user agent about needs and preferences is a matter that may
influence the design of the technology, or at least serve as a consideration
in decisions about which features to include in version 1.0 and which to
postpone.

For example, the User Contexts draft currently provides for a "transcript"
boolean value (true if transcripts of video are requested). The editorial note
acknowledges that whether transcripts are wanted is not specifiable as a
configuration option in current operating systems or user agents, raising the
question whether the proposed feature should therefore be omitted or postponed
to a future version.

If this feature were included, IndieUI would implicitly require user agent
developers to provide a configuration option enabling the user to specify a
preference, or perhaps an algorithm for inferring this preference from other
aspects of the configuration or running environment.

Questions

1. If the value of a proposed variable in the need/preference profile is not
ascertainable at all in any user agent at the time the spec enters Last Call,
should the variable be omitted from the current version of the spec, e.g., 1.0
for the first release? Why or why not?

2. If the value is obtainable in some, but not all user agents (or subject to
differences in operating system), should it be omitted, and if so, under what
circumstances, e.g., where two independent implementations are not expected
within a reasonable time?

3. If there are expected to be two interoperable implementations of a given
feature, but not all user agents would support it (lacking the mechanisms to
obtain the need/preference value), how should the working group respond?
Should the spec be modularized, or should the proposed feature be omitted? Are
there other possibilities?

4. If the value of a proposed need/preference variable is not currently
ascertainable, should the spec recommend a mechanism for obtaining it, for
example that user agents add a configuration option to their user interfaces?
Should any guidance for collecting needs/preferences from the
hardware/software environment be given? what are the interoperability issues
here, if different UAs collect the information differently?

Received on Wednesday, 2 October 2013 08:24:19 UTC