Proposed Candidate Recommendation plan

Hello Working Group,

We've been doing a lot of (good) work resolving issues raised during
last
call and preparing the document for the next phase of the W3C
Process: Candidate Recommendation [1]. The Candidate Recommendation
phase was introduced last November into the Recommendation track so that
Working Groups could get implementation experience for a 
specification before Member (Proposed Recommendation) review. 

I would like to propose a plan of action for the UA Guidelines
Candidate Recommendation review period. This plan has been developed
after discussions with Jon Gunderson and Judy Brewer.

GOAL: Be able to show the W3C Director at the end of Candidate
      Recommendation period:
       
      a) Evidence that the Guidelines make sense. We already have
         significant (last call) evidence that they do.

      b) Evidence that the Guidelines may be implemented. We are
         already part of the way there since we have evaluation
         reports linked from the home page [2]. We will also 
         have an implementation report prepared when the CR review
         begins.

FOCUS: To meet those goals we should focus on three areas:

     1) Demonstrate that the DOM meets the needs of assistive technology
        developers. Document support for the DOM (either in
implementation
        or commitment to implementation) by AT developers.

     2) Get general purpose user agent developers to submit preliminary
        conformance claims to the WG, notably for those checkpoints
        that are difficult to verify unless you are the developer. 
        Issue: Will developers be willing to test conformance of their
        products? How public would that information be? 
        Note: We should get evaluations of browsers and multimedia
players
              at least. Other types of UA?

     3) Continue to refine and add to the Techniques Document, which
        has a lot of information now but requires editing.

DELIVERABLES: 

     1) Implementation report. There will be one before CR and it will
        be useful to compile one after CR and document our success.

     2) Additional product evaluations submitted by developers.

     3) An improved Techniques Document.

     4) Commitments/Testimonials from both general purpose UA developers
        and AT developers in support of the DOM as means of
communication.

The Working Group is invited to comment on this plan and suggest other
pieces
that would bolster our case before the Director. I would like to be able 
to present a plan of action to the Director that has the consensus of
the
Working Group.

Jon, can we add this to the agenda for the 12 January teleconf?

Thank you,

 - Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Process/Process-19991111/tr.html#RecsCR 
[2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814
Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Monday, 10 January 2000 11:15:36 UTC