Help with Funding for HTML Research

Hello WAI. I participate in the HTML Working Group:

<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/>

Last year I collected and analysed dozens of genuine data tables from the 
world wide web:

<http://sitesurgeon.co.uk/tables/>

I presented my findings at the W3C F2F in Boston, November 2007:

<http://projectcerbera.com/blog/2007/11#day09>

I'd love to do more of this but need sponsorship to make it sustainable. The 
tables research has been inactive for several months at a time on a couple 
of occassions because I've needed to pay for food and bills and stuff.

It was used, along with feedback from many other people, to update the HTML5 
draft for data table features. In particular, updating the table header 
association algorithm to be more robust whilst needing less markup from 
authors:

<http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-tabular.html#header-and-data-cell-semantics>

Ian Hickson, Editor of HTML5, summarised how my research had helped:

<http://projectcerbera.com/blog/2008/03#day25>

Other areas I'd like to study include:

* Alt Text (<img alt>, <input type="image" alt>, ...)
* Breadcrumbs (<p>, <ol>, ...)
* Code Samples (<pre>, <pre><code>, <p><code>, ...)
* Code Samples with Syntax Highlighting (<font color>, <span class>, ...)
* Contact Details (<address>, <p class>, <a href rel>, etc.)
* Dialogue (<dl>, <cite>+<blockquote>, <p>, ...)
* Forms and Labels (<label for>, <input id>, <fieldset><legend>, ...)
* Headings (<h1> to <h6>, <font>, <p><strong>, ...)
* Insertions and Deletions (<ins>, <del>, ...)
* Language Changes (lang on various elements)
* Link Relationships (<link rel>, <a rel>, ...)
* Link Text (repetition, context, ...)
* Lists (<dl>, <ol>, <ul>, <li>, <p><br>, ...)
* Paragraphs (<p>, <br><br>, <div>, ...)
* Phrase Elements (<b>, <cite>, <u>, <var>, ...)
* Punctuation (typographic marks, NCRs, UTF-8, ...)
* Questions and Answers (FAQs, blog memes, ...)
* Quoted Blocks (<blockquote>, <div>, <ul>, ...)
* Quoted Text (<q>, punctuation only, ...)
* Shortened Terms (<abbr>, <acronym>, unmarked, ...)
* Site Maps (<h2><ul>, <div><img>, <table>, ...)
* Tag Clouds (<ul><li><a href rel="tag">, ...)
* Time & Date (<abbr class title>, <p class>, ...)
* Title Attributes (supplementing link text, Microformats, ...)

Idea is to help HTML5 features be even more robust, easier to author and 
good for accessibility.

Is funding for research like this something WAI members can help with? I'm 
asking a lot of places and getting some encouraging feedback. The more 
funding I can get together, the more research I can do. :-)

I currently have chickenpox (at age 22!) so don't expect a rapid response.
-- 
Ben 'Cerbera' Millard
<http://projectcerbera.com>

Received on Monday, 21 April 2008 18:54:36 UTC