Draft response to TAG - PLEASE COMMENT ON LIST

Here is my draft response to the recent review of the TAG Explainer - see https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/476.  Based on their input we probably need to make a few additional updates.
1) provide what tools and how they consume these values.  I provide a brief summary of that but it will need additional work to add into the TAG Explainer. We may also consider adding this to the TR space explainer.
2) close the discussion of microformats, autocomplete, and distraction - hopefully we can resolve during our discussions at  TPAC
3) add something to the content module about autopurpose to identify that we are basing overlapping values on it
4) Anything else?  

Also, please see Janina’s post to this list to resolve the question about distractions.
Since Monday October 12 is a US Holiday (I will be working) but also the start of TPAC week we may not have a meeting. Please respond on the list so we can keep this moving forward. It would be best if we can add this response into the issue before our (proposed) meeting at TPAC on Thursday, Oct. 15

Becky’s draft response:

Thanks very much for your detailed review and feedback on the explainer.

Regarding the tools that will be used, we do have a JavaScript solution as a proof of concept implementation that can be seen in this video prepared for TPAC:  https://ln.sync.com/dl/04f8c9330/6wk4ff4v-77wd78s5-ge6wc24s-vm3iwxwm <https://ln.sync.com/dl/04f8c9330/6wk4ff4v-77wd78s5-ge6wc24s-vm3iwxwm>
 (please note the location of this video will change once it is moved into W3C space – we will update as necessary).  We also expect that this technology will be important for education publishers who use EPUB. With an HTML attribute this information can be embedded within EPUB documents where reader software or assistive technologies can use it to assist with learning. We also expect that custom or general browser extensions will be developed by 3rd parties to assist the various disability groups.  This includes updating of AAC software tools to take advantage of the additional semantic information. Also, the addition of personalization information can enhance machine learning. For example, providing alternatives to idioms, it’s raining cats and dogs, or other ambiguous terms. Tools would parse the HTML for the personalization attributes and make the necessary substitutions into the DOM or assistive tool based on the identified user group or individualized need.

 

To be honest we did not thoroughly investigate microformats. We are wary of relying on a specification that does not fall under the auspices of the W3C. While personalization may be a reasonable use case for this technology, it would slow down the development of the Personalization specification while working to advance microformats to meet our additional, diverse needs. We would also be very interested in hearing @tantek ‘s input on this.

 

The I18N group raised the same question about the similarities between autocomplete and purpose. While autocomplete can only be used on form fields, the purpose values can be used on other element types. Where there was overlap with the autocomplete values, we have included the definition from the WCAG 2.1 Input Purposes for User Interface Components reference:  https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#input-purposes <https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#input-purposes>. We can update the purpose values section of the content module to specify that.

[Janina’s distraction response]

 

Becky Gibson
Sr. Accessibility Strategist
Knowbility.org

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
Co-Chair, Accessible Platform Architectures http://www.w3.org/wai/apa