RE: Formal request to donate and publish the Accessibility Tree Training Guide as a Note

I am not familiar with the note process and how much work it would involve 
... but I believe Brian's reasons for working in that direction are very 
good.

Matt King
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
I/T Chief Accessibility Strategist
IBM BT/CIO - Global Workforce and Web Process Enablement 
Phone: (503) 578-2329, Tie line: 731-7398
mattking@us.ibm.com



From:   Bryan Garaventa <bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com>
To:     "lisa.seeman" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>, 
Cc:     W3C WAI Protocols & Formats <public-pfwg@w3.org>
Date:   09/05/2014 12:34 PM
Subject:        RE: Formal request to donate and publish the Accessibility 
Tree  Training  Guide as a Note



Thanks, I understand your points, but still think this is worth doing. 
I'll outline the primary reasons for this below.
 
1 Discoverability
 
If instructional training materials regarding the use of ARIA are only 
hosted and accessed through a wide range of private sites, there is no way 
for standard developers to differentiate between good and bad training 
materials.
 
However, a W3C training resource specifically dedicated for this purpose 
is absolute and can always be referenced for this purpose.
 
2 Impartiality
 
A W3C training resource is wholly educational, and is not trying to sell 
any particular product or service by withholding information.
 
3 Accuracy
 
Since the content of such a training resource involves the participation 
of the group, we can ensure that we are all on the same page regarding 
functionality and implementation, and ensure the highest level of quality 
possible for standard developers to learn from.
 
4 Comprehensibility
 
Most developers don't understand how ARIA works at the platform level, and 
don't understand how the information in the spec translates to practical 
usage. Often this means that such developers see ARIA as a bunch of 
attributes that can be put on things.
 
As a result, many developers use ARIA all the time, but only a tiny 
fraction of these understand why and how to do so effectively using 
specific scripting requirements.
 
The only way to reverse this situation, where it is possible for most 
developers to learn how ARIA works and how to properly implement it, is to 
provide a W3C WG approved central training resource that is dedicated for 
this purpose.
 
I think this is possible using a Note, as described at
http://www.w3.org/2014/Process-20140801/#Note
 
Since I've done most of the work for this already, including direct input 
from various PFWG members during the process to make sure that the 
information is accurate and comprehensible, I believe it would be a good 
time to consider the value of providing this information to all developers 
for the reasons described above.
 
I understand that this is work for all of us in the WG, but I think it 
would be beneficial for everybody in the long run.
 
All the best,
Bryan
 
From: lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com] 
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2014 11:08 PM
To: Bryan Garaventa
Cc: W3C WAI Protocols & Formats
Subject: Re: Formal request to donate and publish the Accessibility Tree 
Training Guide as a Note
 
Hi Bryan

I think it can achieve a lot of this without being a W3C note. I may be 
wrong but I think if we make it a note then the WG has to review it 
critically, reach consensuses on changes  and a lot of work is involved. I 
am not sure there is enough benefit. 

All the best

Lisa Seeman

Athena ICT Accessibility Projects 
LinkedIn, Twitter

 

---- On Fri, 05 Sep 2014 02:53:53 +0300 Bryan Garaventa <
bryan.garaventa@ssbbartgroup.com> wrote ---- 
 
Hello, 
If I may, I would like to make a formal request to donate the content of 
the Accessibility Tree Training Guide to the W3C, and request that this 
content be published as a Note, in order to increase practical knowledge 
of ARIA for engineers and educators who are currently struggling to do so 
using outdated, widely dispersed, and sometimes incorrect training 
materials worldwide. 

For review, the current text is available at 
http://whatsock.com/training/ 
The personal references at the beginning and end can of course be removed, 
and the content modified to fit the documentation standards of the W3C as 
desired. 

The goal of this guide is to address a critical issue worldwide, which is 
the lack of practical knowledge by the majority of common web developers 
who are unfamiliar with the platform level aspects of ARIA, explaining how 
to recognize these connections, how to test for these connections during 
development, how to locate relevant spec documentation and samples for 
each within context, how to recognize the differences between browser and 
Assistive Technology bugs regarding ARIA support, how to recognize key 
differences between differing Assistive Technology types as they relate to 
ARIA support, and to provide a single location where all of this 
information can be obtained and referenced with the greatest level of 
accuracy possible. 

Since screen reader and browser support will evolve as ARIA does also, I 
expect that this would be a living document, which I would be happy to 
continue maintaining and editing if this is agreeable. 

My hope is that, if published as a Note, we can ensure that developers who 
have a basic background in HTML and JavaScript with little to no knowledge 
of ARIA, can read through this guide from beginning to end, follow the W3C 
references as guide posts as instructed, learn how to be familiar with and 
test using the most common Assistive Technologies, and thereby result in a 
good understanding of how ARIA works and should be implemented to ensure 
the greatest level of accessibility possible. 

Sincerely, 
Bryan Garaventa