PROCESS AND TIMELINE FOR IG REVIEW OF HC DRAFT RECOMMENDATIONS

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 five 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 five 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)
MEDIA     Classifying user display and control

There are also background readings for all the HC group's recommendations 
indexed in a guide on the web page to which Al Gilman will point you in his
overview message from the HC WG.  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

Received on Thursday, 16 October 1997 10:27:32 UTC