Re: Style

Some would argue that this problem is best solved by the display
application provided only that the different specific targets are
distinguished from one another by something. It's the classic HTML
argument about  distinction between semantic and formatting tags.

In the case of preferring particular colors, what is supposed to
happen, say, for an annotation consumer with a color vision deficit?
(7 % of American males cannot distinguish red from green.) If "red"
and "green" are merely labels, then why model them as colors at all?
If a totally blind user is forced to use an audio-based application,
are they expected to remember which specific targets are labeled "red"
and which "green"?

Is it a requirement of OA that recommended practices for its use can
be made compliant with the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/ , one of which is "Don't rely on color
alone."  (I certainly hope the answer is "Yes", but haven't noticed
any discussion of it, so I have added it as an issue
http://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/wiki/Open_Issues#W3C_Accessability_Recommendations)

If anybody has already been building annotation applications that are
compliant, it might be helpful to put a pointer to them on the wiki,
even if they are about some annotation mechanism preceding OAC and AO.


Bob
-- 
Robert A. Morris

Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125-3390

IT Staff
Filtered Push Project
Harvard University Herbaria
Harvard University

email: morris.bob@gmail.com
web: http://efg.cs.umb.edu/
web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
===
The content of this communication is made entirely on my
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Harvard University.


On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Shannon Bradshaw
<shannon.bradshaw@gmail.com> wrote:
> Apologies for being late to the party on this.
>
> In the manuscript domain, when identifying a region of interest on a page
> for viewing by users, it is frequently necessary to prefer certain colors
> over others, not because a given color indicates a different semantics but
> because it would otherwise be very difficult to see exactly what is being
> selected as a specific target, given the ink used to produce a feature of
> interest. Many pages are best viewed using a small number of different
> colors for identifying specific targets simply because of the variety of
> inks used on the page.
>
> Without style specifications such as color, in many cases in the manuscript
> domain, a user will find it unduly difficult to see the targets of an
> annotation in a viewer. To ensure fundamental semantics (the targets and
> bodies) are effectively communicated to users in this domain (and others, I
> suspect), I believe it necessary to include some style elements. I think
> this argues for inclusion of style in the core specification. If it ends up
> in the extension spec instead, so be it.
>
> -Shannon
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 2:56 AM, Randall Leeds <randall.leeds@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 11:58 AM, Bob Morris <morris.bob@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > <StrongOpinion>
>> > Basically, our current need is for data annotation to address
>> > fitness-for-purpose, and my guess is that most people annotating
>> > documents also have that motivation. But it's hard to see how to model
>> > fitness-for-purpose without reference to knowledge representation in
>> > the domain of the Body and Topic.  From this perspective, I continue
>> > to believe that Style doesn't belong in an annotation knowledge
>> > representation---I see it as just a tool based on thousands of years
>> > of document production, by which an ao:Annotator is hiding some
>> > fitness-for-use concept that is potentially integrable with someone
>> > else's  were it only clearer why the Annotator designated, or cared
>> > about, that style.  But, if you are able to, e.g. express that your
>> > red stuff is meant to denote that this part of the document signals
>> > something the consuming agent should somehow care about, why shouldn't
>> > that concern be expressed with something less context sensitive than
>> > "text has red background color".
>> > </StrongOpinion>
>> >
>> > To the extent that my StrongOpinion analysis is shared, it is perhaps
>> > an argument that Style belongs in oax.
>>
>> Apologies if I'm reviving an old thread, but I think this is well
>> argued. Particularly given the fact that no sub-classes of Style are
>> currently in the core, putting it in the extension begins to strike me
>> as reasonable.
>
>

Received on Friday, 7 September 2012 16:49:51 UTC