All Mobile Accessibility Report Comments are Addressed

Dear All,

We have completed addressing Shadi's comments on the Mobile Research Note. Simon has already sent an email about how some of them are addressed, for the rest please find the comments below:

priority: medium suggestion for editors' discretion
location: abstract, first paragraph
current wording: Mobile devices … are already the primary form of accessing the Web in many parts of the world
suggested revision: consider providing a citation for this
rationale: unclear if “primary form of accessing the Web” means the number of hits / HTTP requests vs actual use (page views, visit durations, etc.); also to underline that we actually mean access via smart phones (thus the Web)
YY CHANGED – Added a reference to a recent mobile web users survey.
 
priority: strong suggestion for editors' discretion
location: abstract, second paragraph
current wording: While these developments provide vast opportunities for people with disabilities they also entail accessibility challenges
suggested revision: briefly explain the types of challenges we are talking about – inaccessibly developed content/applications? Lack of assistive technologies? Insufficient support for accessibility features in platforms and browsers? All of these?
rationale: We need to set the scope of what we are talking about, especially since the following sentences allude to insufficiency in the standards and specifications alone, whereas some of the barriers that users experience are caused by a cascade of issues
YY NOT CHANGED – Looks OK to us. It is the abstract. It is better to keep it short and don’t go into such details.
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: abstract, third paragraph
current wording: to bring researchers and practitioners together to discuss these challenges and possible solutions
suggested revision: remove
rationale: repeated in the following sentence
YY CHANGED – changed this sentence as “This report presents the major findings of the "Mobile Accessibility" symposium, which was organised by the Research and Development Working Group (RDWG).”. Therefore it now also links to the sypmposium page.
 
 
priority: strong suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, first paragraph
current wording: “Wikipedia definition”
suggested revision: cite the definition (or relevant parts) in this report
rationale: persistency – this document will not change while the definition may change
YY CHANGED – Quoted the definition from Wikipedia.
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, first paragraph
current wording: Apple, HTC, LG, Research in Motion (RIM) and Motorola are just a few examples of the many manufacturers that produce these types of devices
suggested revision: remove sentence
rationale: doesn’t add much value and misses several other vendors, some of which are W3C Members as well (eg. Samsung, Nokia, …)
YY CHANGED – Removed that sentence which was quoted from Wikipedia.
 
priority: medium suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, second paragraph
current wording: last two sentences
suggested revision: ??? separate into a new paragraph?
rationale: really lost me there – what is the “this” that you are referring to? Seems you are now talking about particular content design aspects rather than the entire stack of accessibility and accessibility support?
YY NOT CHANGED – I could not see this problem in the second paragraph of the introduction section.
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, third paragraph
current wording: different set of accessible interactions (API)
suggested revision: ??? different model and APIs for assistive technologies
rationale: don’t understand the sentence
YY CHANGED – Fixed this sentence as suggested.
 
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, third paragraph
current wording: standardising accessible gestures
suggested revision: ??? standardizing alternatives for gestures to support accessibility?
rationale: don’t understand the sentence – what are “accessible gestures”? (note also the UK vs US spelling of the word “standardizing”)
YY CHANGED – Fixed this sentence as suggested.
 
priority: strong suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, last paragraph
current wording: This note presents an overview of the state of the art … and provides a roadmap to future research
suggested revision: This research report presents findings from the online symposium … and provides input to future research
rationale: think “overview of state of the art” and “provides a roadmap” set higher expectation than what the report actually provides (note also changing “note” to “research report” for consistency in referencing this document)
YY CHANGED – Updated the last paragraph as follows: “This research note aims to present the findings of this symposium which constitutes the basis from which to further
explore a research and development roadmap for mobile accessibility. This note presents an overview of the state of the art regarding mobile Web accessibility, introduces the papers that were presented at the symposium and provides input to future research on mobile Web accessibility.”
 
 
priority: medium suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 2. related work, first paragraph
current wording: Mobile web access
suggested revision: Mobile web use
rationale: try to reserve the term “access” and “accessibility” to refer to access by people with disabilities to help ensure clarity and less ambiguity throughout the document
YY CHANGED – Updated it as “Mobile web use”
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 2. related work, second paragraph
current wording: state of the art in mobile Web accessibility guidelines
suggested revision: how accessibility guidelines address the mobile web
rationale: seems preemptive to start with the assumption that there need to be “mobile web accessibility guidelines”
YY CHANGED – Updated the last sentence as “We then look at how accessibility  guidelines address the mobile web and finally we review the new interaction paradigms on mobile devices.”
 
priority: strong suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 2.1 mobile technology and accessibility, second paragraph
current wording: throughout
suggested revision: missing discussion on the impact of authoring tools and their current lack of support of accessibility in the mobile context; this can be extended to frameworks and code libraries like jQuery for mobile etc.
rationale: if we discuss the challenges for designers and developers then it seems we also need to discuss the tool support they currently have (or do not have)
YY NOT CHANGED – I think this is outside the scope of this research note therefore the note has not been updated.
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 3. current research
current wording: title
suggested revision: “symposium papers” or “investigated research” or …
rationale: “current research” seems to broad when only 5 papers are actually discussed
YY CHANGED – Updated as symposium papers.
 
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 5. future directions, convergence of technologies
current wording: The research agenda … our research agenda
suggested revision: research on mobile accessibility
rationale: what “research agenda” are you talking about? That of the European Commission (EC)? The US Federal Communications Committee (FCC)? The United Nations / G3ict M-Enabling? Is it necessarily one research agenda that is needed?
YY CHANGED – Updated as “The research on mobile accessibility…future research”
 
EDITORIAL COMMENTS:
 
priority: important to be addressed before publication
location: throughout
current wording: validation errors
suggested revision: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2012/mobile/note/ED-mobile.html
rationale: publication requirement (actually we should fix the editor draft as well, as it is available through the W3C website!)
YY CHANGED  - It now validates without any error.
 
priority: important to be addressed before publication
location: throughout
current wording: Web browsers, Web content, …
suggested revision: web browsers, web content, … (lower case)
rationale: current W3C editorial style (unless it is a noun, such as “the Web”)
YY CHANGED – Updated all to lowercase.
 
 
priority: important to be addressed before publication
location: throughout
current wording: Standardisation, organising… (UK spelling)
suggested revision: Standardization, organizing… (US spelling)
rationale: current W3C editorial style is US English
YY CHANGED – Checked against a US Spelling Dictionary.
 
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: throughout
current wording: this note (or other ways of referring to this document as “note”)
suggested revision: this research report (consistently referring to the document as “research report”)
rationale: the term “note” is W3C jargon and we should try to consistently refer to this document as “research report” to ensure clarity
YY CHANGED – Updated all as “research report” or “report”.
 
priority: medium suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, first paragraph (and partially throughout)
current wording: a disabled user
suggested revision: people with disabilities
rationale: often “disabled person/user” can be OK but in this particular sentence the word “disabled” seemed ambiguous (disability vs disabled by the software); in general it is more preferable to use “people first” language (ie. “people with disabilities” rather than “disabled users”), as this is a more formal publication
YY CHANGED – Updated this sentence as suggested.
 
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, first paragraph
current wording: (operating systems, browsers, Application Programming Interface (API)'s, and so on are usually specific to a mobile device with each resulting in a unique user experience)
suggested revision: remove parenthesis and make full sentence
rationale: seems too valuable to “hide” in parenthesis
YY CHANGED – Updated this sentence as follows “Beyond the devices themselves, the software that allows people with disabilities to access web content is as varied as the devices themselves which include operating systems, browsers, Application Programming Interface (API)s, etc. are usually specific to a mobile device with each resulting in a unique user experience.”
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 1. introduction, sixth paragraph
current wording: the Research and Development Working Group organized
suggested revision: the Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) organized
rationale: added “RDWG” acronym to help people recognize it (note also the UK vs US spelling of the word “organized”)
YY CHANGED –Updated this as suggested.
 
priority: mild suggestion for editors' discretion
location: 2.2 mobile accessibility guidelines, first paragraph (and throughout)
current wording: W3C’s MWBP
suggested revision: consider expanding acronyms more often or marking them up
rationale: while technically the acronym is expanded on its first occurrence, it is several paragraphs back and readers may have forgotten them meanwhile – it may be better to expand the acronyms more often to remind people what they mean, or at least mark them up in the code; another possibility could be to include a glossary section
YY NOT CHANGED –All acronyms for the first time are used fully and thereafter the acronyms are used.

Regards,
Yeliz Yesilada.

Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2013 11:45:04 UTC