RE: 19 May 2011 Agenda =======================================

I think the WCAG WG needs to make some sort of statement on this issue. It’s an elephant in the middle of the room I would say. Many organizations want to know whether Word documents, Excel sheets, and PowerPoint presentations posted online are considered content under WCAG.  Many organizations and perhaps governments are declaring they are. I’m hearing many of us on the committee consider that it is not “web” content, but it does not at all seem unanimous. 

 

Understanding that the line between online content and offline content is getting blurred, I think we have to reason it out. 

 

I tried out Chris’ point of getting web data in Excel. It works.  In Excel, Select:

 

Data ribbon>From Web> enter a URI> and it takes you to the web site and makes all the tables on the page, which you can select and import, with or without live update.... 

 

Although this fits the definition, in my mind this is a bit peripheral to what one would think of as a User Agent. I think it would be more accurate to say it is being used like a user agent to get external data.... 

 

I think we have to go back to how we arrived at the word “User Agent” years back. If we are honest with ourselves, we’d probably have to say it was a way to include Assistive Technology along with Browsers and we called the two categories one term “User Agents”. I think we should try to stay pretty close to that intention, because almost all software has some sort of interaction with the web, and it could get unmanageable if every piece of software is considered a user agent.

 

At some point in the future perhaps there will just be “content” rather than “web content”... but I’m not sure we want to be there now. I think also we have to remember what technologies were in our mind when we wrote the guidelines. 

Here are several definitions.

In WCAG 2.0, we have a definition of "content" and a definition of "web page". 

content: information and sensory experience to be communicated to the user by means of a user agent, including code or markup that defines the content's structure, presentation, and interactions. 

web page: a non-embedded resource obtained from a single URI using HTTP plus any other resources that are used in the rendering or intended to be rendered together with it by a user agent

user agent: any software that retrieves and presents Web content for users

 


>From UAAG:

user agent: any software that retrieves, renders and facilitates end user interaction with Web content. 

web resource: Anything that can be identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

 

 

From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Chris Beer
Sent: May-17-11 11:00 PM
To: Loretta Guarino Reid
Cc: WCAG
Subject: Re: 19 May 2011 Agenda =======================================

 

Did we want to have the Excel discussion posed by David at all? Or keep it on list?

Chris Beer (iPhone)


On 18/05/2011, at 11:38, Loretta Guarino Reid <lorettaguarino@google.com> wrote:

Meeting Information
Time: 20:00 UTC, 6 AM Eastern Australia, 10 PM Central Europe, 4 PM Eastern US
World Clock: <http://tinyurl.com/dxyzel>
Length: up to 90 minutes
Bridge: +1.617.761.6200 <tel:%2B1.617.761.6200>  (US), +33.4.26.46.79.03 <tel:%2B33.4.26.46.79.03>  (France), +44.203.318.0479 <tel:%2B44.203.318.0479>  (UK)
Passcode: 9224#
IRC: irc.w3.org port: 6665 channel #wai-wcag

Let's plan to touch base this week. Email if there are other items we should talk about.

1. Status of Editor's Drafts
2. Status of HTML5, ARIA techniques