Response to your comments on Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0

Dear Neil Soiffer:



Thank you for your comments on the 24 February 2009 Last Call Working
Draft of Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20090224/). The Protocols and
Formats Working Group has reviewed all comments received on the draft. We
would like to know whether we have understood your comments correctly and
whether you are satisfied with our resolutions.



Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to us
by 1 February 2010 to say whether you accept them or to discuss additional
concerns you have with our response. You can respond in the following
ways:



* If you have a W3C account, we request that you respond online at
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comment ID so we can track your response). Note that this list is publicly
archived.



Please see below for the text of comments that you submitted and our
resolutions to your comments. Each comment includes a link to the archived
copy of your original comment on
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/, and may also
include links to the relevant changes in the Accessible Rich Internet
Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 editors' draft at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/20091214/.



Due to the scope of changes made in response to comments on the Last Call
Working Draft of WAI-ARIA, we are returning the specification to Working
Draft status. We will shortly publish a public "stabilization draft" of
WAI-ARIA and updated Working Drafts of the accompanying documents. While
these versions will not incorporate further discussion based on your
acknowledgement of our response to your comments, we will work with you on
your feedback as part of our preparation for the following version. You are
also welcome to submit new comments on the new public versions in addition
to sending your acknowledgement of our response to your previous comments.



Note that if you still strongly disagree with our resolution on an issue,
you have the opportunity to file a formal objection (according to 3.3.2 of
the W3C Process, at
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews)
to public-pfwg-comments@w3.org. Formal objections will be reviewed during
the candidate recommendation transition meeting with the W3C Director,
unless we can come to agreement with you on a resolution in advance of the
meeting.



Thank you for your time reviewing and sending comments. Though we cannot
always do exactly what each commenter requests, all of the comments are
valuable to the development of Accessible Rich Internet Applications
(WAI-ARIA) 1.0.



Regards,



Janina Sajka, PFWG Chair

Michael Cooper, PFWG Staff Contact


Comment 4: Comment on WAI-ARIA Role (math)
Date: 2009-03-03
Archived at: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-pfwg-comments/2009JanMar/0022.html
Relates to: Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 - math (role) <http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/WD-wai-aria-20090224/#math>
Status: Accepted proposal

-------------
Your comment:
-------------
I'm glad that the math role is in the last call.  Although I'm partly

responsible for the present wording, I'd like to suggest a change to
clarify

it.



Some documents use HTML elements such as <sup> and <sub> to represent
math.

Eg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadratic_polynomial

has both images with alt text (in TeX) and "HTML math" (around the 6th

line).



<i>a</i><i>x</i><sup>2</sup> + <i>b</i><i>x</i> + <i>c</i> = 0



Another example later down is:



<i>f</i>(<i>x</i>)&nbsp;=&nbsp;<i>x</i><sup>2</sup>&nbsp;+&nbsp;<i>x</i>&nbsp;-&nbsp;2



Although I tend to think of these a "ASCII art", some people might not
think

of them as "ASCII". So, I suggest the spec be changed from using the term

"ASCII art" in:



"However, since there exists significant amounts of legacy content that
use

images and ASCII art to represent mathematical expressions..."



to something like:



"However, since there exists significant amounts of legacy content that
use

images and textual approximations using ASCII art or HTML tags (eg, SUB
and

SUP)  to represent mathematical expressions..."



There is a further clarification that is needed.  The section goes on to
say



"The text equivalent used in such situations *SHOULD* be valid MathML or

TeX....images *SHOULD* also be labeled by text that describes the math

formula as it should be spoken, using the

aria-describedby<http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#aria-describedby>

attribute <http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/#def_attribute>."



The sentence should start, "For images, ...".  and should be followed by
a

sentence for what to do for "textual approximations".  They should be

wrapped in a div or span so that there is something to hang the role and

described by attributes.  There isn't (I think) a place to put TeX or

MathML, but if only simple elements like <i>, <sup>, and <sub> are used,

those are easy enough to figure out.  Others usages would be hard to
figure

out (and hard to author without a tool), as would ASCII art.  If there
were

a way to give TeX or MathML, that would be best, but I don't know how it

could be done.



It would be good to add examples using images and html tags to the best

practices section and to link to them in the explanation.  The wikipedia

page included above can serve as a source for some examples.

--------------------------------
Response from the Working Group:
--------------------------------
Thank you for your comment. We have accepted your first two text changes,
and added the examples we discussed with you at the TPAC meeting in
November.

Received on Tuesday, 15 December 2009 00:33:40 UTC