Feedback from WAI Protocols and Formats WG on Points of Interest Working Draft

The following are comments from the WAI Protocols and Formats Working
Group (PFWG), authorized to send as WG comments 14 December 2011
http://www.w3.org/2011/12/14-pf-minutes.html#item12. The PFWG has
reviewed the Points of Interest Core Recommendation First Public Working
Draft published on 12 May 2011:

http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-poi-core-20110512/

This proposed POI standard will be essential in geolocation applications
for people with disabilities where accessibility information about the
POI is encoded in the metadata primitive. While there is not yet a
standard for this type of metadata, there are some geolocation projects
in this space.

For example, see the "Report on Data-Enabled Travel":

http://www.geoaccess.org/content/report-data-enabled-travel

These data requirements were gathered by the community of people and
organizations involved in a White House led challenge on GeoAccess.
Major "accessible cities" efforts like EasyAccessChicago were involved,
providing much input.

http://www.easyaccesschicago.org/

The Report is now being used at the US Dept of Transportation, and they
are looking to refine some of their research programs around it.

In particular, refer to the following sections:

    * Data Requirements for Municipal Infrastructure & POIs:
      http://geoaccess.org/DataEnabledTravel.htm#_Toc286396257
    * Appendix B - List of Example Data [5], specifically the POIs
      section: http://geoaccess.org/DataEnabledTravel.htm#_Toc286396276


It appears from this first working draft that the POI working group does
not intend to define the metadata itself. But since the POI standard
will be fundamental to geolocation applications for people with
disabilities, we would suggest including the following use cases in
Appendix A.

In the "Search" category:

Where is the nearest wheelchair accessible bathroom?
Where is the wheelchair accessible entrance to this building?
Does the museum have audio tours for blind users?
What movies playing near me have captions?

In the "Destination Selection" category:

I need accessible route directions from here to Macy's


-- 

Michael Cooper
Web Accessibility Specialist
World Wide Web Consortium, Web Accessibility Initiative
E-mail cooper@w3.org <mailto:cooper@w3.org>
Information Page <http://www.w3.org/People/cooper/>