Re: New Telcon Time: Vote!

aloha, doug!

thanks not only for your quick response, but for taking my criticism
in the vein it was intended -- not as a cri de coeur, 
but constructively...

this strikes me as an ideal case for the application of ARIA 1.0 to the 
polling interface in order to make it accessible -- the type of 
navigational structures and flow models you expected, but didn't 
find; the tracking of focus changes and notification of the user; the
user interaction which causes dynamic content to update, as well as 
notification of the update and changed content, and so on, are precisely 
what ARIA 1.0 is intended to facilitate... consult:
http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria
a document currently in Last Call

so, doug, please feel free to use the wai-xtech@w3.org list (a 
publicly archived list) to pose any questions you have about 
implementing ARIA on the polling system -- which, now that i know more 
about it, thanks to your extremely clear description of the interface 
in your reply to my post, sounds clearly superior to WBS, which i 
would also like to see relegated to the dustbin of history due to its
being an equal opportunity usability challenge which forces me, at 
least 2 out of every 5 times i'm asked to use the WBS system, to 
use the "text only" email option because the structure of the poll is 
so complex that it is best understood through a parsing of the plain 
text version, which i know, from experience, are a pain for those 
calculating polls and surveys to have to deal with, as well...

the classic likert scale is probably the best "solution" to the 
ratings problem -- if you do use the likert scale, you could also be 
less negative with the defaults, by setting them to 0, which can 
either mean "abstain" or "indifferent" or "invalid answer" or "answer
not given"

thank you very much for being so conscientious, gregory.

PS: what IS the device independent equivalent of "paint"?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Egg-heads of the world unite -- you have nothing to lose but your
yolks.                                        -- Adalai Stevenson
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita: oedipus@hicom.net and unagi69@concentric.net
      Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/
             Oedipus' Online Complex: http://my.opera.com/oedipus
-----------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Original Message -----------
From: Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org>
To: "Gregory J. Rosmaita" <oedipus@hicom.net>
Cc: SVG IG List <public-svg-ig@w3.org>, janina@rednote.net, www-
archive@w3.org
Sent: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:54:34 -0500
Subject: Re: New Telcon Time: Vote!

> Hi, Gregory-
> 
> Sorry about that!
> 
> Honestly, I don't hack HTML much, and most of the accessibility 
> stuff I focus on is SVG... I'm frankly stunned that a data table 
> that is properly marked up with column and row headers is not 
> able to be tabbed to and navigated around.  But I do confirm 
> that this doesn't seem to be possible (using Firefox, at least).
> 
> FYI, the table represents what should be a pretty straightforward
> 7-by-24 data grid, with days of the week along the top, and 
> hours of each day (starting with midnight) along the y-axis. 
>  Each day/time defaults to "impossible", which seems a bit 
> negative but is probably realistic, given everyone's hectic 
> schedules and our world-wide distribution.
> 
> I'm reading up on how to make tables accessible, and will hack Cameron's
> code to make it more friendly.  Ideally, as you navigate around the
> grid, it should say the weekday and the hour for each cell, then 
> the current setting for that cell; that's what I'll aim for, 
> though I don't yet know how to do it (again, I'm really 
> surprised this doesn't just fall out of the table model!).  The 
> same model should apply to its output.
> 
> I will also add code to the script so that you can mark each 
> cell as it has the focus, regardless of what "marker" you have 
> active; that way, you won't have to break out of your navigation 
> context to change "markers"  (where markers are the ratings from 
> "impossible" to "best"). With the time/day cell in focus, you 
> can simply hit the appropriate key to mark that time/day as 
> "Impossible", "Bad", "Acceptable", "Good", or "Best").  One 
> question about this: the initial letters of each rating
> ("i", "b", "a", "g", "b") are problematic, because "b" is 
> duplicated, and they are hard to remember anyway... how about 
> ratings from 1 to 5
> (the classic Likert Scale), where 1 sucks, and 5 rocks?
> 
> As far as the usability of the WBS system meeting planner, I 
> agree that Cameron's planner tool is not equally accessible (yet)
> , because the WBS system was very hard for everyone to use, and 
> all but impossible for me to interpret the results, so it did 
> equalize the overall experience, much like in Vonnegut's short 
> story, Harrison Bergeron.  Since nobody could use it, it was 
> just as good for non-sighted users as for sighted ones.  I have 
> higher aims at usability and accessibility in my modification of 
> Cameron's planner.
> 
> But you didn't need to pull out the umbrageous WCAG 2.0 stick to 
> beat me with...  simply pointing out that it wasn't accessible 
> would have sufficed.  Never attribute to malice that which is 
> adequately explained by stupidity (or ignorance).  We're all 
> overstretched, and sometimes we make mistakes.
> 
> If you have any pragmatic examples of accessible table designs 
> that you think might help, or suggestions as to how to improve 
> the interface, feel free to let me know.
> 
> Regards-
> -Doug
> 
> Gregory J. Rosmaita wrote (on 3/6/09 2:12 PM):
> > aloha, doug!
> > 
> > how exactly is a non-mouse user supposed to "paint" his or her 
> > preferences on the timetable?
> > 
> > there is no way for me to get to the timetable via the keyboard and 
> > "paint" my times -- in fact, i don't even know what the word "paint" 
> > means in this context...  what is the keyboard stroke mouseless 
> > alternative to "painting" with the mouse?
> >
> > doug wrote:
> >> The SVG WG has been using this tool, and its visual output is 
> >> much easier to interpret than our last attempt at selecting a 
> >> telcon time, and a lot more fun.
> > 
> > to which i reply:
> > 
> > it's NO fun for me because i cannot process its visual output, so i 
> > take issue with the claim that it is much easier to interpret than 
> > the last attempt at selecting a time via w3c's wbs system...  i also
> > take umbrage at the use of tools in w3c fora that do NOT comply with 
> > WCAG 2.0, and thus preclude some users from using them
> > 
> > can you fix this modality specific "task" to make it device 
> > independent?
> > 
> > thank you, gregory
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > CONSERVATIVE, n.  A statesman who is enamored of existing evils,
> > as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them 
> > with others.         -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> >              Gregory J. Rosmaita, oedipus@hicom.net
> >   Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/index.html
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> > ---------- Original Message -----------
> > From: Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org>
> > To: SVG IG List <public-svg-ig@w3.org>
> > Sent: Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:03:23 -0500
> > Subject: New Telcon Time: Vote!
> > 
> >> Hi, SVG IG-
> >> 
> >> Spring has sprung!  The grass is riz!
> >> I wonders when the telcon is?
> >> 
> >> Using Cameron McCormack's phabulous patent-pending phone-conf 
> >> planning app, let's all decide together:  
> > http://www.schepers.cc/w3c/svg/ig/
> >> 
> >> Here are the instructions:
> >>   * click on the "someone else" link, and enter your initials in 
> >> the popup  * select a time category from the right-hand (or left-
> >> hand, if you speak arabic) toolbar (choose from such classic 
> >> favorites as "Impossible", "Bad", "Acceptable", "Good", "Best")  
> >> * "paint" your schedule onto the time-canvas by holding down the 
> >> mouse while mousing over the times  * in the text input at the 
> >> bottom, enter your time-zone offset from UTC (remembering that 
> >> the US changes next week, and the EU 3 weeks later)
> >> 
> >> The SVG WG has been using this tool, and its visual output is 
> >> much easier to interpret than our last attempt at selecting a 
> >> telcon time, and a lot more fun.
> >> 
> >> Please fill this out at your earliest possible convenience, so 
> >> we can start the new telcon times for the next SVG IG telcon.
> >> 
> >> Thanks-
> >> -Doug Schepers
> >> W3C Team Contact, SVG and WebApps WGs, SVG IG co-monkey
> > ------- End of Original Message -------
------- End of Original Message -------

Received on Friday, 6 March 2009 21:31:23 UTC