FW: Please review: Draft Call which includes Use Cases

-----Original Message-----
From: Wendy A Chisholm [mailto:wendy@w3.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 2:29 PM
To: Markku T. Hakkinen
Subject: Re: Please review: Draft Call which includes Use Cases


Mark,
This looks great. Thank you!

Here are some editorial suggestions to tighten it up a bit.

1. Combine the two titles into one:
Call for Position Papers: Teleconference on Making Visualization
Technologies Accessible for Persons with Disabilities

2. Introduction
[I've taken a stab at rewriting this to shorten it a bit and make it less
technical (keeping the WAI-IG mailing list in mind as a primary
audience).  What do you think?  It was full of great ideas but I think some
of them will come out in the use cases or the papers.  I think the main
point of the introduction isn't so much to outline possible solutions, but
set context for the event and encourage people to submit papers. The intro
for the collaboration event was 4 short paragraphs, this one is currently 6
fairly long paragraphs. Some of the sentences were a bit ambiguous, so I
took my best stab at what I thought they meant. I probably misinterpreted
some of them.]

Large data sets are available on the Web and researchers are developing
Web-based, graphical representations of the data (visualizations). The
available data includes scientific measurements, demographic information,
and the Web itself (millions of interrelated Web pages and
sites).  Visualizations try to 1) help users see new, interesting
relationships between data or 2) help illustrate known, useful
relationships.

However, users who cannot see well need other methods to learn about the
relationships, users with cognitive disabilities may need simplified
presentations of complex visualizations, and  users who have difficulty
interacting with spatial information need information presented
sequentially.  Although, people with reading disabilities may find
visualizations easier to understand than text.

The goal of this event is to explore visualization research and discuss
possible models that could be used to make data accessible for people with
various disabilities. For example, a visualization of related Web sites
might use an icon to represent each site.  A large icon might represent a
site that has many connections to other sites while a green icon might
represent an e-commerce site;  Clusters of icons might indicate related Web
sites.   How should these patterns be made available without the use of
graphics?  Is it helpful to explain the patterns in a text
description?  What about a list of questions that can be asked about the
data that allows one to dig deeper to expose more relationships?

Another example is a bar chart;  some bars are several times longer than
others while some are so small they are barely noticeable.  Reading the
number associated with each bar may be useful but it does not capture the
instant recognition of seeing one bar twice as long as another.  How can we
visualize these relationships in an accessible way?

3. remove paragraph about semantic web - it seems too technology-specific
to include in the intro.

4. the use cases should all use the same tense.  currently:
meteorologist/using, astronomer/uses,  consumer/receives,  educators/can use

5. The use cases for the collaboration event are more detailed and I think
this helps people understand the intent of the use case and then also the
reason for the event.  I think more detail is particularly important for
topics they won't know much about.  e.g., I don't know what a meteorologist
does or why someone would map temperature gradients to the variations in
earth's elevation.  So, more information about the issues that this person
runs into would be helpful.  Especially if this is based on a real person:
what issues do they have? how do they get around them in order to do their
job? They must have some data that they use right now - what does it look
like? Or are they unable to do their job because we haven't solved this
problem?

6. "Event Information" first paragraph
how about "The format of the event is a teleconference with real-time
Web-based captioning, Web-based presentation materials, and IRC."

7. Due by 31 October
If this goes out this Friday (10 October) that gives people 3 weeks.  We
typically give people minimum of 4.  What about 7 November?  That gives one
week to review and select, one week to secure speakers and announce, and
two weeks to put up accessible slides and work w/the presenters.

Thank you!
--wendy

At 11:06 AM 10/8/2003, you wrote:

>Please review and comment upon the current draft call for position papers
>at:
>
>http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2003/09/call-vis-papers.html
>
>I'm looking forward to your comments.
>
>mark

--
wendy a chisholm
world wide web consortium
web accessibility initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
/--

Received on Wednesday, 15 October 2003 09:49:03 UTC