Re: WAI-ARIA comments from EOWG

Thanks for these comments. Here is where we're at:

Shawn Henry wrote:
>
> Dear PFWG,
>
> EOWG recently discussed the WAI-ARIA documents and have the following
> comments. (These comments were generated by a subset of the EOWG and
> may not reflect consensus throughout the group.)
>
> 1.  All of the documents
>
> * Make clear up front:
> - what is in that specific document and who it is for
> - that there are related documents designed for other audiences, &/or
> that are companions or dependencies of that doc
> - they should first have read the introduction to WAI-ARIA and the
> related documents at http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria
I think you were reviewing the editor's draft, which doesn't have the
public Status of this Document section that, I believe, addresses this.
I also feel the introduction section of each document covers this. Are
there further edits we should make in service of this? If so, please
send specific wording suggestions.

Public drafts:

    * http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-wai-aria-20090224/
    * http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-wai-aria-practices-20090224/
    * http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-wai-aria-implementation-20090224/

>
> * For consistency with other WAI specs, consider the following
> titles/h1s:
> - Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 [without
> ‘Version’]
I made this change.
> - WAI-ARIA Primer for Accessible Rich Internet Applications 1.0
> - WAI-ARIA Best Practices for Accessible Rich Internet Applications 1.0
> - WAI-ARIA User Agent Implementation Guide for Accessible Rich
> Internet Applications 1.0
> - WAI-ARIA Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications 1.0 [or
> no 1.0 needed?]
I think this is super-awkward. This is kind of like saying "WAI-ARIA
Best Practices for WAI-ARIA". I also don't see that this change would
make it more consistent with other WAI specs. The other editors agreed
that we don't want to make these title changes.
>
> * For documents that are informative (rather than normative
> standards/specs), make that clear.
This is addressed in the status of this document (again, an editors
draft issue).
>
> * <a>ARIA Overview</a> should be <a>WAI-ARIA Overview</a>
I'm unclear if /all/ instances of ARIA should be presented as
"WAI-ARIA". My personal preference is to do "WAI-ARIA" on first use in a
section and plain "ARIA" after that. I believe you're requesting that
all instances be the long form, but I'm not clear. It's actually easier
just to find-replace it all to long form than to decide when to do long
and when to do short, but I don't know if that's best for readability.
>
> * Explain jargon like "user agent" on first use. Link terms to their
> definitions in the glossary. Make sure acronyms are written out in
> first use.
I did a massive linking of terms, and wrapping <abbr> around everything
I could think of, which I hope addresses this request. I actually think
I may have overdone it, but it was with the expectation that it's easier
to pull back than to go through another pass to add. I welcome feedback
about the appropriate amount of term links and <abbr> markup.
>
> * Consider using the CSS as is in /TR/WCAG/, especially for the links
> to the definitions
We will take a look at this with a goal to adopting some of the styles
from WCAG 2.0.
>
> * add [contents] link at the top, e.g., like /TR/WCAG/
This is done.
>
> * include link to public comments list in the Status section (or
> wherever else appropriate)
Standard for public status; editorial draft issue again.
>
> 2. WAI-ARIA 1.0 Editor's Draft <http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria/>
>
> * In "This section is informative" link "informative" to definition
> and un-italicize.
Done. I linked normative and informative to a glossary entry. I used a
"termref" class which is styled to look how older WCAG drafts did it.
The style for that class may be updated in addressing the above CSS request.
>
> * Change "Semantics are knowledge of" to "Semantics is the knowledge
> of..."
Done
>
> 3. WAI-ARIA Best Practices <http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/aria-practices/ />
>
> "Writing rich internet applications is much more difficult than
> righting in HTML. It is even more work to ensure your application runs
> in multiple browsers and support WAI-ARIA."
> is pretty strong. Please reconsider wording. This could be taken out
> of context and used to say that the main point is that ARIA is really
> hard, instead of how awesome it is to the user.
I'll happily take wording suggestions. I did nothing yet.
>
> Note that some EOWG participants were somewhat uncomfortable telling
> people so strongly to use toolkits. (more on this is in a separate email)
We have agreed that we will make this change, but I can't promise when
it will show up in a draft.
>
> (also typo "righting" and “support”)
done
>
> ###
>
> Regards,
> ~Shawn for EOWG <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/>
>
>
> ------------------
> Shawn Lawton Henry
> W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
> e-mail: shawn@w3.org
> phone: +1.617.395.7664
> about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/
>
>

-- 

Michael Cooper
Web Accessibility Specialist
World Wide Web Consortium, Web Accessibility Initiative
E-mail cooper@w3.org <mailto:cooper@w3.org>
Information Page <http://www.w3.org/People/cooper/>