re: MINUTES(edited): W3C WAI User Agent Telecon 15 December 1999

Thanks for the overview.
Jon


At 10:35 AM 12/16/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi All
>
>I noted in the F2F mtg, on thursday 9th, there was some discussion regarding
>issue 142, and again in the minutes from yesterdays teleconf. call, an open
>action item #21 for finding out how  developers use Windows built in
>features, specifically SoundSentry and ShowSounds.
>
>First, because I was not at the F2F, and did not get all the discussion,
if any
>of my note below is old-news, please just ignore it.   Second, I don't mean to
>steal any of Dick's thunder, since it seems as though this open issue was
>assigned to him.  That said, I'd like to add the following note to the
>discussion.
>
>==
>
>At the F2F Mtg, from the notes:
>
>regarding the discussion on Issue 142.....about checkpoint 1.5, it seemed
>the discussion got off track a bit. As I read checkpoint 1.5, it talks about
>making sure messages are available, for example, if a dialog box pops up
>telling the
>user that a "file cannot be found", that "text" and the dialog box itself,
>needs to be available in such a fashion, that AT is aware of it, and can
>provide the
>information to the user as necessary (e.g., read the text, etc.)
>
>Somehow the discussion got off onto SoundSentry, which I believe is a
>mis-conception for this checkpoint.  SoundSentry is intended to only provide
>the user with a simple visual indication of simple sounds the computer may
>generate (i.e., the application "beeps" when the user tries to type into an
>inappropriate window, etc.).  Simple visual indication was kind of
>discussed, but
>SoundSentry only does a  "flash the caption bar, or flash the active
>window" when
>using MS Windows, or "flash the menu bar" when using Mac OS, there is
currently
>no provision to provide text.  That doesn't mean that the "application" could
>not also provide some kind of "text or text equivalent" in addition to
>making a simple
>sound, just that this is out-side the scope of SoundSentry.  In fact, many
>applications already do provide some kind of dialog box with text, etc., when
>they generate a simple "beep".
>
>SoundSentry is an operating system setting.  The user has the ability to
>turn this setting on/off in MS Windows, DOS, and the Mac OS.  On these
>platforms, the UA would not have to do anything different than what it
>would already be
>doing, if it was generating a simple sound, like a beep, etc.  SoundSentry, if
>turned on would catch this, and do its thing.
>
>Having said that, realize the implementation of SoundSentry in MS Windows
>9.x/nt is still evolving.  What I mean by that, is that on the PC, SoundSentry
>originally only had to monitor the PC speaker for sounds.  On today's
>multi-media computers,
>SoundSentry also needs to monitor and understand the sound card, which it is
>not yet doing very well.  The MacOS implementation of SoundSentry is the
>model to
>follow here.
>
>If the simple sound(s) progresses out of "simple", and that would mean
that the
>sound or audio is now conveying "information", then the operating system
>flag/setting called ShowSounds would be a more appropriate solution.  The UA's
>should definitely pay attention to when the user has the ShowSounds flag set,
>since that user is informing any/all applications (including the OS)  that
>he/she
>wishes to have all audio information to also be presented in a "visual"
format.
>
>If people still feel there is a "gray area" left between what would be
>SoundSentry and what
>would be ShowSounds, then I'd propose that is an operating system issue,
>one we'd be
>glad to take back to MS, Apple, etc., and outside the scope of the UA
>guidelines.
>
>The UA should, as stated in 1.5, "available through standard output APIs", and
>then SoundSentry and/or ShowSounds will be able to do their thing.
>
>Mark
>

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
College of Applied Life Studies
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
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Thursday, 16 December 1999 12:17:43 UTC