- From: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 19:21:11 -0500
- To: chairs@w3.org, w3c-wai-ua@w3.org, w3c-wai-cg@w3.org, w3c-wai-ig@w3.org, jim@arkenstone.org, geoffray@gwmicro.com, bweiss@aisquared.co, tvraman@us.ibm.com, Fraser_shein@msn.com, bryany@pathcom.com, Peter.Korn@Eng.Sun.COM, lake@netscape.com, Earl.Johnson@Eng.Sun.COM, paciello@pop.ma.ultranet.com, janina@afb.net, liam@htmlhelp.com, efreese@datafoundry.com, madaus@real.com, john.gardner@orst.edu, gv@trace.wisc.edu, dd@w3.org, jbrewer@w3.org, hakkinen@prodworks.com, geoff_freed@wgbh.org, pat.sheehan@mail.va.gov, richardp@akamail.com, howcome@opera.com, chitchcock@cast.org, cwilso@MICROSOFT.com, Barrys@conversa.com, chong99@concentric.net, pyoung@ix.netcom.com, cs@ics.forth.gr, acantor@interlog.com, jdix@loc.gov, ralph@fsc.fujitsu.com, Bill.Smith@Eng.Sun.COM, kweide@tezcat.com, buttles@wsb.champlain.edu, burke@ucla.edu, kford@teleport.com, timichel@w3.org, hagino@w3.org, lboyer@us.ibm.com, steven.pemberton@cwi.nl, imielins@cs.rutgers.edu, ion@math.ams.org, aldiaz@us.ibm.com, steve_anderson@dragonsys.com, mzajicek@brookes.ac.uk, jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca, clilley@w3.org, lauren@softquad.com, w3c-@w3.org, asgilman@access.digex.net, cpl@starlingweb.com
Dear Chairs, On behalf of the User Agent Guidelines Working Group [1], I am pleased to announce the publication of the "User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" Last Call Working Draft. The document address is: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19991105 The Last Call review period will end 1 December 1999. Please send review comments before that date to w3c-wai-ua@w3.org (archives available at [2]). At their 3 November 1999 teleconference [3], the User Agent Guidelines Working Group decided to move the UA Guidelines to Last Call. By moving to last call, the Working Group asserts that it has met the requirement of its charter [7] "to complete the development of user agent accessibility guidelines addressing accessibility of graphical, voice, and text browsers, multimedia players, and third-party assistive technologies which work in conjunction with browsers and multimedia players." The Working Group has also published a "Techniques Document" that explains different ways to satisfy the requirements of the Guidelines. Comments on this document are also welcome, although it is not in Last Call. The Working Group does not anticipate moving the Techniques Document to Recommendation. When and if the Guidelines become a Recommendation, the Techniques Document will become a W3C Note. The Techniques Document published at the same time as the Last Call Guidelines is: http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-TECHS-19991105 The list of changes to the Guidelines [8] and the WG's issues list [9] are available on the Web. QUESTIONS AND ISSUES In your review, please consider the following questions and issues: 1) Do you understand the Guidelines and Checkpoints or do they need clarification? 2) Do you find the documents (Guidelines and Techniques) themselves usable? Can you find what you are looking for? 3) Two checkpoints [numbers here] require user agents to make available to users information about the current input configuration (e.g., keyboard input). These checkpoints have been assigned different priorities: Priority 1 for user-specified configuration and Priority 2 for author-specified configuration (e.g., access keys). The Working Group did not reach consensus on whether these two checkpoints should be merged into a single checkpoint, and what the priority of such a checkpoint would be. 4) Checkpoint 6.1 (Priority 1) asks user agents to implement the accessibility features of supported specifications. In the Authoring Tool Guidelines Proposed Recommendation, checkpoints that refer to content accessibility do so by "Relative Priority". This means that the priority of the checkpoint in the UAGL depends on how much you wish to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [6]. There has been a suggestion to make 6.1 a checkpoint with a Relative Priority rather than Priority 1. The Working Group did not reach consensus on whether the burden of doing so (complicating the priority definition) outweighed the benefit of consistency among the three sets of Guidelines. Also, it is not clear that a Priority 3 requirement in WCAG would always be a Priority 3 requirement in UAGL (i.e., it may be more important to implement a feature than for the author to supply it). Comments on the proposal to make 6.1 a Relative Priority checkpoint are welcome. DEPENDENCIES AND REVIEW The Working Group thanks all who have contributed to the Guidelines and Techniques document. The Working Group also thanks in advance those people who have committed to reviewing [4] the Last Call Working Draft: 1.Jim Fruchterman 2.Doug Geoffray 3.Ben Wiess 4.T.V. Raman 5.Fraser Shein 6.Bryan Campbell 7.Peter Korn 8.Lakespur Roca 9.Earl Johnson 10.Mike Paciello 11.Janina Sajka 12.Liam Quinn 13.Eric Freese 14.George Madaus 15.John Gardner 16.Gregg Vanderheiden 17.Markku T. Hakkinen 18.Geoff Freed 19.Patrick Sheehan 20.Richard Primack 21.Håkon Wium Lie 22.Chuck Hitchcock All Group Chairs are also invited to send their comments to the above address. The Working Group has identified dependencies with the following W3C Working Groups and requests review from them. Even if review is not possible, we request that the Chairs listed below announce their review intentions to w3c-wai-ua (a public mailing list). 1) WAI Protocols & Formats WG Co-Chairs: Al Gilman and Daniel Dardailler UAWG provides input on accessibility requirements with regard to W3C technologies for which PFWG manages dependencies. 2) WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WG Co-Chairs: Chuck Letourneau and Gregg Vanderheiden (Trace) UAWG ensures that the "until user agent" clauses in WCAG are addressed by user agents. 3) WAI Authoring Tool Guidelines WG Chair: Jutta Treviranus (U of Toronto) UAWG coordinates on common component of user interface accessibility. 4) WAI Education & Outreach WG Chair: Judy Brewer (W3C) EOWG will assist in promoting awareness and implementation of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines. 5) CSS/FP WG Chair: Chris Lilley (W3C) UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in CSS. 6) DOM WG Chair: Lauren Wood (Softquad) UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements for DOM. 7) HTML WG Chair: Steven Pemberton (CWI) UAWG will provide input on potential improvements to XHTML accessibility features. 8) Mobile Access IG Chair: Tatsuya Hagino (W3C) UAWG and Mobile Access IG will coordinate to ensure consistent approaches on guidelines development and on CC/PP. 9) MathML WG Co-Chairs: Patrick Ion (AMS) and Angel Diaz (IBM) UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements for MathML. 10) SYMM WG Chair: Thierry Michel (W3C) UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in SMIL. 11) Voice Browser WG Chair: Tomasz Imielinski (Rutgers U) UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in Voice Browsing. Thank you, - Ian Jacobs [1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/ [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/ [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1999OctDec/0244.html [4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/1999/10/reviewers-last-call [5] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/PR-WAI-AUTOOLS-19991026 [6] http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT [7] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-charter [8] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-wd-changes.html [9] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html -- Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs Tel/Fax: +1 212 684-1814 Cell: +1 917 450-8783
Received on Friday, 5 November 1999 19:22:32 UTC