W3C WAI UA Telecon Minutes for October 7th

Information on the telecon can also be found at:
http://www.w3c.org/wai/ua/wai-ua-telecon-19981007.html

Attendance
Chair: Jon Gunderson
Scribe: Ian Jacobs
SMIL discussion chair: Jim Allan
Denis Anson
Judy Brewer
Daniel Dardailler
Markku T. Hakkinen
Kathy Hewitt
Philipp Hoschka 
Marja-Riitta Koivunen 
Scott Luebking 
Chuck Opperman 
Regrets
Kitch Barnicle

Action Items and Conclusions
SMIL: Will include general principles of SMIL proposal and Jim Allan will
identify somebody to work on SMIL techniques
DMTL: Jon will draft a guideline related to DHTML

Minutes
1) SMIL (Chaired by Jim) See Judy's email [1] and thread. [1]
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1998JulSep/0200.html 
Jim: Should these be incorporated in UA Guidelines or a techniques-type
document. 
Judy: How does it fit into overall priorities? How does it fit into abstract
guideline/concrete technique structure? In [1], there are both guidelines and
techniques. Perhaps expand section 4.4 [2] with this new information? [2]
http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19980814.html 
Denis: General guidelines doc needs to describe features of Web pages to make
them accessible. SMIL would be a technique since implementation (like HTML,
for
example). /* Some Issues */ 
Judy: In resources appendix, add Geoff's reference. 
Standards for broadcast? 
Judy to follow up on: Issue: Is there the appropriate technical mechanism in
SMIL for descriptive video: 
Phillip Hoschka: Probably can be done, but I'll have to look into this. 
/* Phillip: See Geoff Freeds mock-up in G2 environment. */ 
/* Discussion of positioning captions */ 
Philipp: Its not the author that determines caption position, it's the user. 
Jim: We should include in techniques that CSS or XSL will apply to any SMIL
implementation. 
Judy: Almost everything that we looked at here for UA has a consideration that
will need to be addressed in the Authoring guidelines. How is caption position
handled by SWITCH statements? 
Philipp: SWITCH should not be used for positioning captions. Style should be
used. User should have control over the positioning. Does SWITCH mean "Whether
or not there are captions"? 
Philipp (on switch): Allows you to include alternative media objects in your
presentation (vary according to bandwidth, encoding, etc.). A selection
mechanism for what will be displayed, depending on player, settings, etc. How
does this differ from/resemble SELECT? The same (according to AL).
RESOLUTION :
Caption should be able to be positioned independently of video. Guidelines
won't specify mechanism. How does this interact with spawning new windows? 
Philipp: You don't necessarily need a new window. 
Judy: Even if window is spawned, we need to send an alert.
/* New issue: dynamic control of pace of presentation */ 
Judy: Different paces necessary depending on needs. Need to be able to control
pace of presentation dynamically (without changing pitch). Are there barriers
within SMIL to doing this? Hard-sync is allowed, but not required by SMIL
1.0. 
Mark: In our Audio books, we allow dynamic control by modifying the time
scale.
Not done through hard-sync. 
Philipp: I'll think about whether hard-sync is really required. 
/* New */ 
Judy: Is anything missing? 
Jon: Seems like we've covered most of the bases. 
/* Feeling that subject pretty much covered, but new info may arrive on list
after this discussion */ 
Marja: What about 3D stuff? 
Judy: I wouldn't know how to address this here. 
Judy: How are we going to get this information into the UA Guidelines?
(Abstractions -> guidelines Details -> techniques) Will first version of UA
Guidelines include SMIL recommendations? 
Judy: If possible, would offer a major benefit. 
Jon: If guidelines done "right", could (theoretically) include SAMI
information
as well. 
Chuck: I'm not concerned about SAMI as part of the guidelines. I worried about
people's problems today. 
ACTIONS: - Integrate Judy's list into UA Guidelines. - Choose people to help
with techniques section: Jim Allan and Geoff Freed. 
----------- 
2) Dynamic HTML (See also last week's minutes [3]) [3]
http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-telecon-19980930.html 
Jon: How will DOM assist in notifying users/technologies of "mutation" events
(changes). How can user know that there's an event associate with an element
(in the face of bubbling). What statement can we make about DHTML? 
Chuck: See document published by MS about authoring DHTML accessibility. Part
of DHTML Reference. (Avoid mouse-over, Use CSS whenever possible, etc.) [4]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/sdk/inetsdk/help/dhtml/accessibility/acc
essibility.htm 
Chuck: most concerned with a reasonable alternative to on-mouse-down events. 
When authors do mouse-specific stuff, can the UA do anything? 
What about keypress events? 
How are those implemented? 
Jim: See article (HTMLWG? WebReview?) on implementing keypress for DHTML.
(URL??) 
When authors do mouse-specific things (intentionally ignoring on-keypress),
can
the UA synthesize the functionality?
An accessibility aid running on top of a browser can enumerate which elements
have events. But this mechanism fails when bubbling introduced. One option for
Page Authors: Put explicit events on elements. 
Denis: Do browsers have equivalent of the "system carrot"? 
Chuck: No, they don't have an insertion point. However, when you focus on an
element (via tabbing or mouse click), IE4 explicitly sets the system carrot to
that position. Could you navigate with the system carrot to simulate
mouse-down
events? (Note: Some IE mailer is just IE browser with insertion point). 
Proposed solution: Throw the browser into edit mode (but read-only) where you
have the insertion point, but can't make changes. This is problematic for
technical reasons. Chuck: Idea for identifying events: Through scripts, could
enumerate objects with mouse events attached, and wrap them with "tabindex"
(or
possibly anchors) to existing HTML page. 
/* Note use of mouse-over to reveal help text in frames */ 
Jon: Are there other HTML workarounds for help messages?
/* Note use of "title" on elements, notably anchors, since you can get a
tool-tip */ How long can a tool-tip be? How about an alt-text? 
( No limit imposed by HTML. May be limits in implementation.) Question about
cognitive issue of having same mechanism for navigating links as for
navigating
events. 
Scott: Last week, looked at pages with DHTML. Some scripts restructure
pages on
the fly. For a blind person, might be equivalent to moving furniture around
without explaining why. The purpose of the change must be made clear, not just
the change. 
Chuck: Is there a conf call next week: 
Jon: Yes. and the 28th of October. 

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: 217-244-5870
Fax: 217-333-0248
E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu
WWW:	http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
	http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess

Received on Wednesday, 7 October 1998 13:43:07 UTC