Re: Special telecon and a survey for the W3C user agent guidelines

Dear Jon,

I will attend the telecon. I'm sorry for the late respons. I had some rescheduling to do. I hope it's better late then never.

I wrote my answers to the survey between the questions. The review/comment on the UAGL I will send in a separate mail.

>>> Jon Gunderson <jongund@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> 02/03/00 03:46PM >>>
Hans,
I would like to invite you to a telecon on February 17th at 2:00pm (EST,
USA) related to the W3C WAI User Agent guidelines.  I hope that you or
another member of the technical staff at Alva working on the OutSPoken
product will be able to attend the meeting.  The following survey will help
prepare you for the meeting and even if you cannot attend the meeting the
survey information is useful to the UA working group.  The survey will help
the group understand how the current W3C User Agent Accessibility
Guidelines will impact assistive technology developers.  The survey is
designed to help the group understand the current techniques used by
assistive technology developers to provide alternative access to web
browsers and web content.  The survey also helps identify developer
knowledge of current W3C trechnologies and what resources would be useful
in helping to educate and support assistive technology developers in using
W3C technologies to provide improved access to web content to people with
disabilities.

1. What techniques do you currently use or plan to use to access and
process WWW content for alternative or enhanced rendering for people with
disabilities?
[Alva] All kinds of techniques. Although the DOM is very interesting, and becoming more interesting, we do not use it yet.

2. Are you familiar with the W3C Document Object Module (DOM)[1]?
[hr] Yes I am. I did an internal presentation in ALVA to point out its merits.

3. If yes to question 2, are you familiar with APIs you can use to access
the DOM implementations of current user agents (i.e. Microsoft
implementation of the DOM in IE 4.0/5.0)?

[hr] Yes I am. I never used them in practice except indirectly in some JavaScript programming.

4. If yes to question 2 and 3, do you think the DOM will meet your needs
for access to WWW content?

[hr] I think so. The future of the use of DOM partly lies in the growing up of the internet-content providers. DOM itself is a valid tool for tackling internet automation of all sorts (in combination with other tools of course). 

5. If yes to question 3 and 4, how complex and resource intensive is it to
use the DOM to access WWW content?

[hr] Currently the complexity would not be very high. There would be a mass of exception-cases to be programmed, which takes much resource. For the future I expect the complexity to grow and the exception cases to diminish.

6. Indicate which of the following resources would help you in using or
deciding to use the DOM for accessing WWW content.  Respond to each
question with a yes, no or donĘt know.

6.a. Demonstration code?
[hr] always

6.b. WWW based tutorial materials on DOM capabilities and programming examples?
[yes]

6.c Face-to-face workshop on DOM capabilities and programming examples?
[don't know]

6.d Access to people with expertise in DOM capabilities and programming?
[YES]

6.e Open ended question for you to indicate any other resources that would
help you?
[hr] A reliable, stable, and independent implementation of the DOM on several platforms.

7. Could you please review and comment on current version of the W3C Web
Accessibility Initiative User Agent guidelines [2], especially the
checkpoints related to Guideline 5: Observe system conventions and standard
interfaces [3]? 

[hr] see separate mail.

[1] http://www.w3.org/DOM/ 
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-UAAG10-20000128 
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-UAAG10-20000128/#gl-accessible-interface 

Please return the survey as soon as possible and e-mail to: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org 

Thanks for your time and interest in the User Agent Accessibility
Guidelines, please call me if you have any questions.
Jon

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 Monday, 14 February 2000 04:05:28 UTC