DRAFT of IG Review Instructions

Al, Daniel, Jim,

Here's my draft preamble.  I'll look for your feedback in the morning.  I
will be out of the office between 10 & about 1 EDT, so if we can finish
this between 9 & 10am, great.

- Judy

DRAFT!!!!

Subject: PROCESS AND TIMELINE FOR REVIEW OF HC WG DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS

Dear IPO/WAI Interest Group participants:

HC RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IG REVIEW COMING OUT TODAY:

Today you will be receiving the draft recommendations of the HC Working
Group on accessibility recommendations for inclusion in the HTML 4.0 and
CSS2 specifications.  These recommendations were developed under a tight
timeline and with extensive discussion over the past several weeks by the
HC WG members.  

FORMAT FOR REVIEW MATERIALS AND DISCUSSION:

You will receive a brief overview of the draft recommendations, and
thread-starters for discussion in four areas where the HC WG is
particularly seeking review of their conclusions.  In addition, comment is
welcomed in any other areas you feel need clarification.  Comment on which
areas you consider most critical for accessibility will also be helpful.
Please note that the discussion will occur on the IG list-serve, rather
than being sent to the HC list, so expect an increased volume of mail for
the coming week.

The four thread-starters have symbolic names to help keep the discussions
straight.  Please use these naming conventions in your replies to
facilitate dialog on the list-serve.  The threads are:
OPTION    Making SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs comprehensible
TABLE     Making TABLEs comprehensible
DESC      Text associated with images
REF       Associating HTML contents with external documents
          (and similar LINK and META extensions)

There are also background readings for all the HC group's recommendations 
indexed in the web page with URL   http://www.w3.org/WAI/group/HC/guide.html
This guide contains a summary of the conclusions on a few other issues,
including: 
     Preserving the logical reading order of text
     Images used as list bullets
     Range of MEDIA values
     Controlling dynamic features

TIMING FOR REVIEW:

Because of HTML 4.0 deadlines, we will need to hand our recommendations to
the HTML WG on October 22.  The earlier we have your comments within this
period, the more time the HC WG has to work with them.  Comments received
after this time will be extremely difficult to incorporate into the HTML
4.0 draft which goes to the W3C Member organizations for a review period
prior to its eventual public release.  

NATURE OF PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS:

Please bear in mind that the IPO/WAI draft recommendations which you will
be reviewing are precisely that: draft recommendations, which after review
will be proposed to HTML and CSS Working Groups of the World Wide Web
Consortium.  While we will be working to ensure that as many of these
recommendations are accepted as possible, there is no guarantee that this
proposal represents the final content of HTML 4.0 or CSS2.  In some cases
better ways to address these issues may emerge after discussion.  We
appreciate all IPO/WAI Interest Group participants treating the proposed
recommendations with this sensitivity.  

Thank you in advance for your time reviewing this material.

Regards,

Judy Brewer
Director, International Program Office
Web Accessibility Initiative, W3C
617-258-9741
jbrewer@w3.org


At 09:59 PM 10/15/97 -0400, Al Gilman wrote:
>Judy,
>
>To keep the Interest Group from being inundated with messages,
>why don't you just include the following fragment in your
>introduction on process?  Then we can fire off the four surviving
>discussion-starters and we are on our way.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>You will shortly be receiving messages setting the stage for
>discussion in four areas where we have questions and know that
>the conclusions reached by the HC group should be reviewed.
>These have symbolic names to help keep the discussion threads
>straight.
>
>These areas are:
>
>OPTION    Making SELECT structures with lots of OPTIONs comprehensible
>
>TABLE     Making TABLEs comprehensible
>
>DESC      Text associated with images
>
>REF       Associating HTML contents with external documents
>          (and similar LINK and META extensions)
>
>There are background readings for all the HC group's recommendations 
>indexed in the web page with URL
>
>  http://www.w3.org/WAI/group/HC/guide.html
>
>In addition to the four major areas listed above, this guide
>contains a summary of the conclusions on a few other issues where
>the results are less likely to stimulate discussion.  Feel free
>to discuss any issue you feel needs to be clarified.  We are
>priming the pump only in the above four areas.
>
>Issues written up in the guide but not represented in the four
>topic areas above are:
>
>     Preserving the logical reading order of text
>     Images used as list bullets
>     Range of MEDIA values
>     Controlling dynamic features
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>-- Al
>

Received on Thursday, 16 October 1997 02:35:43 UTC