Re: Is this a Job for SVG and WAI?

At 07:11 PM 2001-08-01 , Jon Ferraiolo wrote:
>As the SVG and WAI working groups discuss WCAG and UAAG, it can be helpful 
>to have some sample content to evaluate against.
>
>Michael Diggles has produced a PDF file with some embedded maps and has 
>issued a challenge asking how someone might approach making this particular 
>real-world graphical content accessible. I was wondering if perhaps 
>volunteers from the SVG and WAI working groups might be willing to do a 
>conference call with Michael to have him explain the sorts of information 
>that his maps contain, and then have the WAI team explain the sorts of 
>accessibility issues that could possible be addressed, and then review 
>WCAG, UAAG and SVG to see how they measure up.
>

AG::

If you just want one person to talk with Michael and orient Michael to the
fact
that there are possibilities here, that might be Charles, because he has in
mind to update the SVG access note.  

 <http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG-access>http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG-access/

I know of no better way to prepare for writing tutorial materials than to meet
the "elevator speech" challenge in the flesh.  A phone call is a slighly
relaxed version of the elevator speech challenge.  I would actually suggest
that a shared-application conference where there is application sharing
between
personal computers at the ends of the call in addition to voice is
appropriate,
given the topic is interactive access to information conventionally presented
in static maps on paper.

But for the question of "what are the WCAG and UAAG provisions in this area?"
it would take a more structured information gathering and decision making
process, basically a new working group.  There is insufficient consensus on
what to tell Michael, but lots of belief that there is something one should
tell Michael.  

For a good starting poit for documented examples visit the Science
Applications
Project at Oregon State.

Research on Accessing Graphics
<http://dots.physics.orst.edu/graphics.html>http://dots.physics.orst.edu/gr
aphics.html

But let me insert one warning.  Print maps are one technique for presenting
geospatial information.  But they don't correspond to one strategy for access
to geospatial information for people with disabilities.  There are phase
boundaries running through this territory, where depending on the abilities of
the user and their equipment one would present the same information in
different ways.  SVG is applicable to the adapted views used in more than one
of these stragegies.  There is no "universal map" in SVG per se.  There is a
"universal GIS" which extracts to SVG objects that are accessible in adaptive
ways that are different in different user and equipment cases.

Online map services are one of the ways that the Internet has indeed improved
our lives.  They form one of the clear wins in the "clicks vs. bricks"
debate. 
And they are my posterkid for user-controlled view diversity.  Pan and zoom
are
cliches, best current practices, and features enter and leave the current view
as a function of the space available as the result of zooming.  Different
access technologies create different classes of "screen objects" to render the
geospatial information to, and SVG is a strong candidate to encode these
views,
but not the GIS database in toto.

I believe the San Diego City/County GIS website has some interesting
above-average view control features that illustrate this idea well.

SanGIS, San Diego City and County Maps
<http://www.sangis.org/>http://www.sangis.org/

It might make sense to address the content and agent guidelines in one
group in
this case.

A [burning] question on my mind at the current time is whether we have to bear
the calendar time and expense of using a face to face workshop to survey this
topic and see if there is a cogent case for organized and committed work in
the
area, or whether it can be done with a virtual meeting.

Al

PS:  people Michael might talk with aside from Charles would include John
Gardner or Reg Gollege, just to name two.  Maybe we do need a F2F workshop
just
because the short list of must-invite people exceeds 50.  But it must be
understood that there is no WAI position on this question, only people who can
give convincing evidence of good things to do in SVG.

>Ian, it seems like this sort of a thing might be something which would 
>interest you.
>
>Jon
>
>>X-Mailer: exmh version 2.3.1 01/18/2001 with version: MH 6.8.3 #10[UCI]
>>To: jferraio@adobe.com
>>Subject: Is this a Job for SVG?
>>
>>IN talking with the USGS about accessibility and PDF this morning, there was
>>some discussion of the Diggle Challenge. I looked at this file, and there 
>>are,
>>no unexpectedly, some very complex figures. My question for you: is this the
>>sort of thing for which SVG could produce an accessible solution?
>>
>>         Loretta
>>
>>------- Forwarded Message
>>
>>From: Michael Diggles <mdiggles@usgs.gov>
>>Subject: Diggles' PDF with four figures - challenge
>>Cc: kkirk@usgs.gov
>>X-MIMETrack: Itemize by SMTP Server on gscamnlh01/SERVER/USGS/DOI(Release
>>5.0.7 |March
>>  21, 2001) at 07/31/2001 12:18:52 PM,
>>         Serialize by Router on gscamnlh01/SERVER/USGS/DOI(Release 5.0.7 
>> |March 21,
>>2001) at
>>  07/31/2001 12:18:59 PM,
>>         Serialize complete at 07/31/2001 12:18:59 PM
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>>Content-Length: 2065
>>
>>Hi Loretta,
>>
>>I'm sorry I missed the conference call this morning.  I talked to
>>Keith Kirk this morning after it and he said you would like to try
>>your hand at my "challenge" tagging problem.
>>
>>Here is my note to the listserve:
>>
>> >From mkwitter@usgs.gov
>> >
>> >Is everyone out there still in the state of shock or are we the only
>> >District that relies totally on Macs to produce reports?  The statement at
>> >the end of the second paragraph (see web site below) of the "Guide to
>> >making 508-compliant PDF files"..."The Macintosh operating system is
>> >incapable of tagging PDF files for accessibility."
>>
>>I don't see any evidence that Windows machines do a much better job.
>>
>>Here is a 3-foot-by 4-foot poster with four figures in it.
>>
>><http://caldera.wr.usgs.gov/InSAR_slo.pdf>http://caldera.wr.usgs.gov/InSA
R_slo.pdf
>>
>>I will buy a beer for anybody who can make it accessible other than
>>using the strip-the-graphics technique.  I use both a Mac and a PC
>>and I gave up and made a stripped version and a graphic-containing
>>version for between now and when we figure out how to tag PDF's that
>>come from the plethora of PostScript-generating applications with
>>which we have been making our living for years.  I do admit that for
>>the version with the graphics stripped out, I moved it from my Mac to
>>my PC to use the Make-Accessible plug-in.  Just for fun, here is the
>>stripped version:  it passed the accessibility checker
>>
>><http://caldera.wr.usgs.gov/InSAR_slo_Accessible.pdf>http://caldera.wr.us
gs.gov/InSAR_slo_Accessible.pdf
>>
>>I guess I'll put a little front-end on these two files that say
>>something like "click here for graphic-rich version" and "click here
>>for accessible version"
>>
>>I'd love to have a clean way to do it; so that offer of a beer is open.
>>
>>- --Mike Diggles
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>Michael F. Diggles, Geologist
>>Western Publications Group, CD-ROM publications
>>Building 3, Room 3-202H
>>U.S. Geological Survey, MS-951
>>345 Middlefield Road
>>Menlo Park, CA 94025
>>
>>Phone:  (650) 329-5404
>>Fax, (650) 329-5453
>><mailto:mdiggles@usgs.gov>mailto:mdiggles@usgs.gov
>><http://caldera.wr.usgs.gov/>http://caldera.wr.usgs.gov
>><http://wpg.wr.usgs.gov/>http://wpg.wr.usgs.gov/
>>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>
>>
>>------- End of Forwarded Message
>

Received on Thursday, 2 August 2001 11:13:46 UTC