Minutes from WAI UA Telecon on 11th November

Attendance 
Ian Jacobs
Kathy Hewitt
Daniel Dardailler
Jon Gunderson (chair)
Charles McCathieNeville
Wilson Craig
Earl Harrison 
Jim Allan
Scott Leubking

Action Items and Conclusions
Scott Leubking  
1. Will contact berkley disability group on reviewing the guidelines 
2. Will try to contact deaf-blind group in seattle on reviewing the
guidelines 
Jon Gunderson  
1. Send out announcement on possible face to face meeting in december 
2. Send out announcement on determining which items are required for direct
implmentation in any UA 
3. Coordinate the submission of content to techniques document 
Discussion issues for the list  
1. Defining a model to talk about 3rd pary assistive technology and user agent
technology 
2. Developing a consensus on determining direct implementation language and
markup for each technique 
3. Review guidelines and techniques for missing or incomplete information 
4. Recruiting reviewers from a wide range of disability persepctive 

Minutes
DD: I have looked at priorities
Direct vs. 3rd party assistive technology is an important issue
JG: What do you think about format?
DD: They are detailed, covers alot of issues and not exactly what I had
invisioned but they are usable
Abstract guidelines do not carry priorities, talked to Ian
IJ: Guidelines are not a checklist item, they have techniques related to them
that people can check off
JA: Some guidelines still have priorities
IJ: Guidelines can be still be priorities since some guidelines may be more
important than othter guidelines
DD: 4.1 has one and other guidelines do not
IJ: We need to establish priorities of other guidelines
DD: are we going to remove other priorities for guidelines
IJ: We could, or we could just know that priorities are different between
guidelines and techniques
The main question is knowing what is the threshold for complying to a
guideline
How many prioroty one techniques do you need to satisfied for satisfying a
guideline
KH: Well I like the way it is structured, can take to developers and they can
use them
Techniques are fully listed out
IJ: One attempt in the current editing pass is to limit the number og
guidelines, there are currently 20 guidelines and techniques are grouped under
the guidelines
Does the document make the accessibility information visionary
The techniques document tries to serve both a users perspective and developers
view
KH: What about duplications, I noticed in one of the techniques document that
there was a 4.2 techniques for other types of documents
IJ: Let me look at the same place, what section
KH: Looking at section 4.2.13 and 6.2 
IJ: 4.2.13 is in larger context than just NOSCRIPT and 6.2 says to implement
NOSCRIPT
IJ: One is slightly more abstract and the other concrete
JG: This talks about a general implementation issue and the other is specific
CM: Dependent vs. dependent user agents not clear
Like a plug is that a dependent or independent user agent
DD: Do plugins have total control over rendering
One reference to dependent uiser agents
JG: 3 groups of browsers types ....
KH: What about Home Page reader
DD: it is not a dependent user agent, it is not dependent
/* Jon talked about the issues related to diect and 3rd party asssitive
technology */
DD: Do we have a definition for dependent and independent user agent
IJ: Not really
CM: Is real audio user agent a dependent user agent
Do we need to have the discussion
I don't see how the definition helps
DD: I think we do, especially for other technologies like XML
We need to underwstand what these terms means
Then we can decide about whether they should be applied to the guidelines
pwWebSpeak relies on MSHTML control for parsing
JG: That sounds like a technology issue
DD: New generation of web tools for building applications
Issue of user agent that are mainstream and that are not specialized, they
will
be used by third part assistive technology
Those two are different axis
What about table linearization and that we split it into a tree view. Remove
table markup 
SL: Table linearization is simpler
DD: Linearization should 
SL: Whether the user agent talks 
KH: Why is table linearization then a requirement
SL: The reason to put table linearization in mainstream browser. I am looking
at the benefits for the amount of time. It is very straight forward.
KH: What is the benefit to the mainstream user. I am not looking at the level
of effort.
SL: I do believe in the cost benefit analysis, by having it in a central
location. People can change assitive technology and without needing learn to
learn new techniques. Speech is more complex and the cost is high. 
KH: Yes, I don't agree with table linearization. 
SL: Table linearization is saving man hours for assistive technology vendors
KH: I have the same issue related to mainstream browser to try to simplify the
mainstream browser for the general user population. As you ask me to add more
features, the browser becomes more complex.
DD: Some screen readers will not use DOM they will just use screen rendering.
So if third party assistive is not very smart, it will not be able to provide
good information.
SL: The MSAA is not always good. Since IE will be developed for mac or UNIX
environment and will not have MSAA.
DD: How do you feel about this issue?
KH: You can extend this model to wordprocessing, is this a wish list.
If I don't have this is the browser is the browser inaccessible? This
ahould be
the question for priority 1 items
We provide support through accessibility APIs and this is where we are putting
our effort 
SL: Is this really providing access? Are they providing very good access?
DD: What is the extend of the problem. If it is a small set of problems, then
it is not important. 
SL: I think we need to look at 3rd party assistive technology will need to
look
at a range of products. We need to look at the context. I don't see it as a
viable approach.
KH: That's why MSAA is supported in IE and MS Office.
DD: MSAA is every where and additional support within for accessibility.
Does a
user agent need to support table linearization if 3rd party will be doing it?
JG: Do we want to...
SL: Some people have specialized needs. In addition there are large groups of
people that benefit from certain techniques.
WC: One thing that developers need to know about control 
KH: This is the issue of the face-to-face. There is a big gaping hole, if you
go through our document object model. We need to spell out what should be done
directly. Otherwise there will be holes in the implementation of the
guidelines.
SL: Most companies will do the absolute minimum.
JG: I think we will need another face-to-face meeting. Who can come?
SL: Resource issue 
DD: Dates are open 
Who would some from the current call:
KH, IJ, DD, JG,

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, 4 November 1998 14:42:42 UTC