For Dec. 3 EO meeting minutes.

For December 3, 1999 EO WG meeting

In case I can't make the meeting on Friday morning, please accept this as
my contribution.  If I am on hand, then we can just bung the lot into the
minutes.

1) ACTION ITEM Review from Nov. 12, 1999 minutes:

Re: WAI OVERVIEW CURRICULA 
ACTION CL, HB, WL, and JT: review and comment WAI Overview 
CL's comments were posted to Judy and the EO list on November 12.
Ref: [ http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-eo/1999OctDec/0055.html ]


2) Outreach Update:

CL: The State of New York recently enacted a policy requiring state
agencies to meet single-A compliance with WCAG 1.0.  It is called the
"Office for Technology Policy 99-3".  The policy is posted at
http://www.irm.state.ny.us/policy/99-3.htm.  My November 18 presentation in
Albany to about 250 New York State communications policy managers, Web
masters and other interested state employees went very well.  I was able to
stay the entire day and act as a resource person throughout their policy
breakout sessions.  

CL: On November 22, I gave a talk about WCAG and WAI to about 200
Government of Canada communications policy managers, Web masters and other
interested federal employees at the "Government on the Net 99" conference
in Hull, Quebec.  Feedback from that presentation has been excellent.  At
the accompanying vendor's showcase, I interviewed three private-sector
companies that either teach Web design, do Web design, or both.  All three
were aware of the Government of Canada's emerging requirement for
accessible design.  Better yet, all three were aware of the WAI and WCAG
and the GoC Style Guide on accessibility. Two of the three asked me how
accessible the output of FrontPage was (so the awareness isn't too deep, at
least in the individuals staffing the booths... but hey... much better than
nothing!)


3) WCAG Curriculum update:

CL: Since the November 12 meeting, Harvey Bingham has been diligently going
through all the WCAG curriculum slides in preparation for presenting at a
conference.  He has pointed out numerous small, medium and large problems
that I have subsequently fixed.  I am trying to find an uninterrupted block
of time to do a final recompile that will incorporate some universal
changes (i.e. improved navigation) to the slide sets.  I have also gotten a
couple of minor bug-fix notes from other people (and fixed the bugs).


4)  UA Last Call review

CL: I couldn't help spotting some typo and grammatical problems as I was
reviewing the draft, but I end with general comments as requested by Judy.

Legend:
[suggested text additions] i.e. additions between square brackets, 
{suggested text deletions} i.e. deletions between curly brackets, 
CL: comments or questions i.e. comments preceded by CL:.

1.1 Principles of Accessible Design
This document is organized according to several principles that [, if
translated into actions,] will improve the design of any type of user agent:
CL: i.e. principles will not improve the design... implementation of the
principles will.

Checkpoint
1.4 Ensure that every functionality offered through the user interface is
available through the standard keyboard API. Priority 1
	The keystroke-only command protocol of the user interface should be
efficient enough to support production use. 
CL: What is meant by "production use"?.  This is the first and only time
this phrase appears and it is not defined.

Checkpoint
2.2 If more than one alternative equivalent is available for content, allow
the user to choose from among the alternatives. This includes the choice of
viewing no alternatives. Priority 1 
	For example, if a multimedia presentation has several tracks of {closed}
closed captions
CL: duplicate word "closed".

Guideline 7. Provide navigation mechanisms
Sequential access (e.g., line scrolling, page scrolling, tabbing access
through active elements, etc.) means advancing through rendered [content]
in well-defined steps 
CL: first bullet point: I presume the missing word is "content".

Guideline 8. Help orient the user
Provide information about resource structure, viewport structure, element
summaries, etc. that will assist the user [to] understand their browsing
context.


CL: To directly address Judy's suggested questions: 

- is the purpose clear?  
CL:  Very clear to me.  I suspect it would be just as clear to the intended
audience of software developers, especially User Agent developers.  The
document does not "talk down" to them. 

- does the introductory matter explain the context of disability
requirements adequately & appropriately for the purpose of that document? 
CL:  I think it does.  The WAI's Core Reference Document might be
referenced as an additional resource, but bulking up this document would
serve no useful purpose. 

- will developers or other users of the document need additional kinds of
supporting resources to make best use of the document? 
CL:  From a technical standpoint the best resource will likely be the Trace
Center's documentation on general and specific accessible software design.
From a business case reason for even looking at this document, the best
resource will be a great set of testimonials from major content
providers/page developers who are looking for access-aware design tools.

Cheers!
Chuck Letourneau


----
Starling Access Services
 "Access A World Of Possibility"
  e-mail: info@starlingweb.com
   URL: http://www.starlingweb.com
    Phone: 613-820-2272  FAX: 613-820-6983

Received on Thursday, 2 December 1999 22:48:47 UTC