Re: Minutes: SVG A11y TF telecon, 29th May 2015

Chaals and Jason,

We didn't complete the discussion on symbol and icon during the call and
will pick up the discussion on symbol on Friday. Doug brought the
difference between icon and symbol by referring to this page
http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-icon-and-vs-symbol/.

Since we are looking at the graphics domain, if we want to "split hairs" as
long as we think they are meaningful we should.

 I would like to see a symbol role be the default role for the symbol
element. According to Rich's mapping doc, symbol either does not get mapped
at all or maps to group. Symbol is a standard term in many fields that can
have things rendered in SVG. Math, physical sciences (chemistry, physics),
cartography (map making), statistical charts/infograhics, blue
prints/technical drawings all use the term symbol as part of their lexicon
(and I don't believe they use the term icon). Unicode has symbols but not
icons. Since our goal it to be friendly to users, especially professionals
and students - calling a symbol an icon would be a disservice and
disadvantage to AT users.

As Doug mentioned on Friday, icon is widely used in web development for
graphics associated with buttons, menu items and toolbars. And I think that
is a valid role.

                                                              
                                                              
                    Regards,                     Fred         
                                                              
                   Fred Esch                                  
       Accessibility, Watson Innovations                      
    AARB Complex Visualization Working Group                  
                     Chair                                    
        W3C SVG Accessibility Task Force                      
                   IBM Watson                                 
                                                              
                                                              






From: "White, Jason J" <jjwhite@ets.org>
To: "chaals@yandex-team.ru" <chaals@yandex-team.ru>
Cc: "lwatson@paciellogroup.com" <lwatson@paciellogroup.com>,
            "public-svg-a11y@w3.org" <public-svg-a11y@w3.org>
Date: 05/30/2015 01:55 PM
Subject: Re: Minutes: SVG A11y TF telecon, 29th May 2015




> On May 30, 2015, at 04:20, chaals@yandex-team.ru wrote:
>
>
> A couple of comments on the proposed roles:
>
> 1. Can we just redefine "image”?

From the ARIA 1.1 draft:

----
A container for a collection of elements that form an image.

An img can contain captions and descriptive text, as well as multiple image
files that when viewed together give the impression of a single image. An
img represents a single graphic within a document, whether or not it is
formed by a collection of drawing objects. In order for elements with a
role of img be perceivable, authors must provide alternative text or a
label determined by the accessible name calculation.
——

Thus, it is already a compound object, though the above description isn’t
exactly what we have in mind for it.

>
> What breaks if we redefine the image role so that it may have explorable
children?

Possibly nothing. A definite answer to that question would be helpful here.

>
> 2. What is the difference between icon and symbol?
>
> If the only difference is that one might be a button, and the other not,
then I think we're splitting hairs and should just have one of them.
Unfortunately I had to leave the call just as this part of the conversation
was starting. Based on the mailing list discussion, though, my
understanding is that “symbol” is meant to represent the same kind of
object as “icon”, but the former is a component of an SVG document whereas
the latter is the entire image that comprises the SVG document.

I don’t think the ARIA semantics should depend on whether or not an entity
can occur as a component of a larger graphic, however. There may be other
distinctions between the two that I’m not appreciating, though.


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