RE: [techs] Summary/Minutes of July 16 Techniques Call

One suggestion and some responses to specific points (responses are
preceded by [js

John

Suggestion
1. Consider re-ordering the contents to build from relatively familiar
and concrete issues such as alt text for <img> elements toward more
abtract issues like using metadata to increase accessibility.  I
suespect this will make the techniques document more readable and more
usable by a wider range of developers and trainers.



-----Original Message-----
From: Ben Caldwell [mailto:caldwell@trace.wisc.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 10:19 am
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: [techs] Summary/Minutes of July 16 Techniques Call



PRESENT

Matt May
Chris Ridpath
Lisa Seeman
Ben Caldwell
Roberto Scano
Roberto Ellero
Michela Cappelli
Michael Cooper

ACTION ITEMS

@@ Wendy and Michael to work on specifics for face to face meetings. @@
Lisa to work on rewriting technique for use of <title> @@ Ben to look at
history of technique for <address> to find out if there is a reason to
keep it. @@ Lisa to raise meta refresh issue with PF - can future
specifications include an accessible means of including refresh? @@ Lisa
to draft a technique about validation to a spec

DISCUSSION:

A short timeline for getting WCAG 2.0 to candidate recommendation means
that a lot of effort needs to be put into techniques work in the near
future. We discussed the need for scheduling a techniques face to face
ASAP. (No specific dates or locations have been proposed yet.) We also
decided that we should hold some extended teleconference calls, the
first of which will be next week, Wednesday, 23 July from 14:00 to 17:00
UTC (16:00 to 19:00 Central Europe/10:00 to 1:00 U.S. Eastern/7:00 to
10:00 U.S. Pacific).

A new HTML Techniques draft [1] was released last week and the
techniques group hopes to release additional techniques drafts in the
coming weeks. The remainder of the meeting focused on the latest draft
and a summary of that discussion is included below.


Technique: Use the TITLE element to describe the document.

Editorial note suggests "label" instead of "describe"

Summarize? Title should describe purpose of document and be distinct
from other pages.
[js: I agree. The <title> element should clearly identify the specific
resource and indicate its purpose]

Checkpoint 3.3 mentions the accuracy and uniqueness of page titles. 

Associate with 3.3 instead of 1.3?
[js: Yes.]

Action: Lisa to take a stab at rewriting this one

Second editorial note under technique for title suggests that we delete
the example of "title on link." This editorial note seems to be in the
wrong place.
[js: IF the editorial note is in the wrong place, then the example to
which it refers (in the paragraph right above the note) is also in the
wrong place.  But I think the editorial note is in the right place and
that it is correct: we should replace the example about the title
attribute with another one that's less likely to confuse readers.
Perhaps an example showing how the title attribute can be used with form
controls or images?  See for example
http://www.ital.utexas.edu/resource/how_to/form/pulldown_gp/pulldown_gp.
html]

Technique: The ADDRESS element

address element should be reqd. because there needs to be a point of
contact for who to contact if there is a problem.

if inaccessible, it's unlikely that someone would have done this, but
might be helpful 

what is accessibility benefit of using <address>?

propose that description for this one says, if you publish the author
information, then you should use <address>

Action: Ben investigate history of this technique and to see if we're
missing something.

Technique: The meta element (missing checkpoint reference) - should be
associated with checkpoint 2.2

Discussion on meta refresh - what does "avoid" mean in this case?

A technique for doing this in an accessible way is needed in server-side
or scripting techniques. 

There are some examples where refresh can be used to make use of a site
more efficient. If an alternative version (without refresh) is
available, it can still be accessible. 

Change avoid to "do not use" and point to other techniques (to be
developed)?

problem here is with the protocol - HTML does not have an accessible
mechanism for this.

Action: Lisa to raise this with PF

!Doctype statement technique should be associated with technique 4.1
(use-spec)

some validation tools are only looking for doctype tags, but they don't
actually check validity

we should have a technique with a checklist item that says you've
validated to a spec

Action Lisa to write up a technique about validation

W3C Validator only goes back to HTML 4.01.

Technique: The LINK element and alternative documents

add a note under link element for text-only version about the importance
of generating alternate versions from the same source, keeping them up
to date, etc. 

the href in this example should have a ".html" on it. 

Should cross-reference server-side techniques or other references about
how to do this.

Technique: Section Headings

Want a margin defined at 5%? How about 15px? (ednote)

feeling about margins and paddings is that any unit is OK as long as
there is enough contrast/space. 

Issue of relative units needs to be addressed someplace (CSS
Techniques??).

Proposal: split the following checklist item into two 

(current checklist item) Use HTML header elements H1 through H6, in
order, to define the structure of the document.

(proposed revisions)

Use HTML header elements H1 through H6, in that order.
--and--
Use HTML header elements to define the structure of the document.

[js: If we say that "header elements ... Define the structure of the
document," this might create confusion about all the other references to
"structure" and "structural elements" (e.g., as opposed to presentation
and presentation elements.  Suggest rewording to "Use HTML header
elements ... To identify sections of the document" or something
similar.]

suggestion: instead of "Use CSS, not HTML header elements, to create
font effects." Change to: Do not use HTML header elements to create font
effects that are not a part of the structure of the document. (problem
is that the current wording implies that you can't use HTML header tags)
[js: agree]


[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-HTMLTECH-20030711.html 

--
Ben Caldwell | caldwell@trace.wisc.edu
Trace Research and Development Center (http://trace.wisc.edu)

Received on Thursday, 17 July 2003 11:58:43 UTC