Re: AUWG survey (due before the call on Mar. 1):

Hi Tim,

Thanks for taking the time to start on the survey.

You ask some questions in your first comment that I will answer in-line:

Cheers,
Jan




On 26/02/2010 10:03 AM, Boland Jr., Frederick E. wrote:
> Started on the survey.. first three responses..
> Best, Tim
>
...
> ======================
> (1) New proposal on replacing term: freehand drawing:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2010JanMar/0063.html
>    _ Accept the proposal
>    _ Recommend changes (add comments)
>    _x The proposal needs more discussion (add comments)
>    _ Disagree with the proposal
>    _ Neutral - will accept the consensus of the group
>
> Comments: why do we need to distinguish between "continuous" and "discrete"?
 > Those terms are highly subjective..? It's all just "input" via a 
"device"? The wording of the new proposal seems confusing to me..

JR: The reason to distinguish is that there is an important 
accessibility difference between mice and keyboards (individual key 
positions are discrete - up or down; while a mouse's position is much 
more continuous, even if not actually continuous from a mathematical 
standpoint).

So our situation is that we want to give guidance on when it might be ok 
to provide some feature only with the mouse. The idea is to let that be 
dictated by the content - which is essentially the same thing WCAG 2 
does. They say:

"
WCAG20: 2.1.1 Keyboard: All functionality of the content is operable 
through a keyboard interface without requiring specific timings for 
individual keystrokes, except where the underlying function requires 
input that depends on the path of the user's movement and not just the 
endpoints. (Level A)

Note 1: This exception relates to the underlying function, not the input 
technique. For example, if using handwriting to enter text, the input 
technique (handwriting) requires path-dependent input but the underlying 
function (text input) does not.
"

So their exception is when the underlying function requires a PATH [a 
series of locations] of author movement. I'm just expanding that to 
other quasi-continuous data such as a series of pressures, angles and 
speeds.


> Also, WCAG2.0 has definitions for "(Web) content" and "keyboard interface" - are our definitions consistent with theirs?  If not, should they be?

JR: Our definition of keyboard interface is the same as theirs except 
reformatted to be one paragraph instead of a sentence and then two notes.

Our definition of (web) content includes the entire WCAG2 definition 
"Information and sensory experience to be communicated to the end user 
by means of a user agent, including code or markup that defines the 
content's structure, presentation, and interactions." and then adds:
"In ATAG 2.0, the term is primarily used to refer to the output that is 
produced by the authoring tool. Content produced by authoring tools may 
include web applications, including those that act as web-based 
authoring tools. Accessible web content is web content that conforms to 
a particular level of WCAG 2.0 (see Relationship to WCAG 2.0 section). 
Structured web content is content that includes machine-readable 
internal structure (e.g., markup elements), as opposed to unstructured 
content, such as raster image formats or plain human language text."

And then I'm proposing to also add:

"Some web content properties can be said to *encode continuous input*
because they incorporate frequent samples of the path, speed, pressure,
angle, etc. of a mouse or stylus. For example, a "watercolor paint
stroke" effect."

Received on Friday, 26 February 2010 22:23:27 UTC