Minutes: User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Teleconference -- 21 Feb 2013

[W3C]<http://www.w3.org/>

- DRAFT -
User Agent Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Teleconference
21 Feb 2013

See also: IRC log<http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-irc>

Attendees
Present
Kelly, Kim, Simon, Eric, Greg, Jeanne, Jan
Regrets
Jim
Chair
Jim_Allan_Kelly_Ford
Scribe
Kim
Contents

  *   Topics<http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#agenda>
     *   conformance use cases for conformance scenarios (extensions, mobile apps, etc)<http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#item01>
     *   Recharter - http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2010/uawg_charter.html<http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#item02>
  *   Summary of Action Items<http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#ActionSummary>

________________________________

<trackbot> Date: 21 February 2013

<kford> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2013JanMar/0026.html

<kford> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2013JanMar/0041.html

<kford> Scribe: Kim
conformance use cases for conformance scenarios (extensions, mobile apps, etc)

<kford> Jim's latest draft http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2013JanMar/0055.html

Kelly: conformance - two ways to approach this. Jim sent another draft of an attempt to capture all the feedback. Take five minutes to read it. If we still think there's a lot of debate I'd like to step back and see where the points of disagreement are.

Eric: I did read through Jim's document. I made a few minor comments to it - I thought it made some good progress. And then I also sent those comments with track changes, and I also took a crack at writing a conformance section that addresses - builds on Jim's document it doesn't at all the detail but sketches out an outline for it and reflects some of the advances that I think that Jim's...
... document had.
... Those were sent to the list about 10 minutes ago.
... I was building on Jim's work, not adding all the detail, but also adding a couple of concepts I think might be helpful and ironing out the conformance section

Kelly: who hasn't read Jim's document?

Greg: so use Eric's document because that has everything

Jeanne: I would rather not modifier definition of user agent - that introduces a very big black hole. I would rather see a statement at the beginning of the conformance section that says for purposes of conformance the user agent is the software - however we want to phrase that. And therefore we don't need to touch the general definition of a user agent.

Eric: what I put in my email approaches that point

Jeanne: I'm happy with that language
... can we resolve that were not going to change the definition of user agent per se, but put a statement at the beginning of the conformance statement that says for the purposes of conformance the user agent is the software that's being available for conformance

Jan: I do see value in changing the subtypes

Jeanne: I think it's confusing that Jim has it in the conformance proposal

Jeane: the first sections of it - the definition of user agent, what qualifies as a user agent. It's currently in the introduction, it's not in the conformance section today.

Greg: as part of the introduction is it normative? we could have a normative section that differentiates what we think is a user agent versus what is not to guide other agencies. Theoretically in the end it's all going to come down to the purchasing agency deciding what a will do to comply with UAAG. So in that we are more advisory.
... purchasing - that's where the decisions will be made whether an operating system needs to comply with UAAG, whether a telephone does etc.

Eric: in the second email that I sent I essentially took that general approach - that a user agent conforms when it meets all the applicable requirements specified by the document. So there is some flexibility about what kind of software you wish to conform, but it does enumerate two major kinds of conformance. This is what I discern from Jim Allen's and the structure of our last discussion....
... A couple of new terms - core conformance, which is for user agents to have broad capabilities for retrieving rendering and user action, and the classic example is a web browser.
... and the other major categories when I referred to as auxiliary conformance, and that's for user agents that have a narrower set of capabilities- don't render any content. So within core conformance it appears that Jim's document has a couple of major subtypes. In my rewrite I didn't elaborate on those major subtypes, but that would be a detail under the core conformance.

Greg: my comment was just where does our discussion of user agent belong - normative for non-normative section.

Eric: at the end of the day conformance is about what you define as your user agent. It begs the question what about all that earlier determination you make about one of the major categories of things, or how strict you want to be about the kinds of user agents that would be eligible for conformance. I don't know that I know fully the answer, but I did in my rewrite put some of that...
... information in the conformance section.

Kelly: Jeanne, back to your comment about the first part - you were saying just eliminate that?

<jeanne> http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2013/ED-UAAG20-20130108/#intro-def-ua

Jeanne: In the January 8 document- putting it in IRC. Here is Jim's part about the definition of user agent, in the introduction. And if you look at the implementing document that's where the second section is.

<jeanne> http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2013/ED-IMPLEMENTING-UAAG20-20130108/#intro-def-useragent

Jeanne: that's all informative
... so that first definition of the user agent is informative. Jim quoted it straight - when Eric made comments, he added comments of the definition of the user agent that really only belong in the conformance section, not in the introduction

<jeanne> http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2013/ED-UAAG20-20130108/#conformance

Eric: making the distinction between those two definitions may be valuable even early in the document. That is what is really intended within the success criteria. That is the definition that is being used there. So maybe useful to make that distinction prior to people reading the actual requirements or especially, success criteria.
... might be helpful if I quote from the second paragraph

User Agent. In general, a user agent is any software that retrieves, renders, and fosters user interaction with Web content. However, another, subtly different meaning of user agent is: the software for which conformance to UAAG2 is being sought; as described below, the user of this document has considerable flexibility in defining the exact nature of the user agent for which conformance is...

scribe: sought.

Eric: it generally touches on both definitions - it might be useful that only in the conformance section but maybe earlier so people get the idea that there's at least a two-part process. One is figuring out what are the kinds of things - software entities that should be considered for UAAG conformance and then second is defining the user agent - what you mean by it with all the...
... inclusions...
... and exclusions - and in the third step would be to apply all the applicable requirements to it and see if it works.
... it might be possible to do that rather simply early in the document but I agree with you that it is critical to have that second definition understood when people are getting into the conformance section.

Greg: by the phrase second definition you are referring to anywhere where conformance is sought

Eric: within those broad constraints or guidelines and there are these details that can be defined by the user of the document, and that's what ultimately you are testing against. Guidelines about what kinds of document, what kinds of software is relevant - it is relevant to conformance because the set of requirements that are likely to be applicable very depending on which type of...
... conformance who

are seeking. Full conformance, which I called core conformance, then a large number of the success criteria would be mandatory. They cannot be non-applicable. On the other hand if it's just auxiliary conformance and you're dealing with just a plug-in or an extension, that you might have a large number of success criteria that are non applicable

Kelly: any reactions?

Jeanne: quick reactions - the first is I don't like the word core because to me core is a small subset of the requirements that would be core and what we are really saying is the full conformance is everything - you comply to everything not a smaller subset. The concept is fine, I just wanted to comment on core. But I do like the word auxiliary - I think that addresses concerns of other...
... groups that we not use the word partial.

Eric: that makes sense. Regular performance versus auxiliary? I was not so much in favor of full conformance because it seems like even something for which you are seeking auxiliary conformance it can be fully conformance. But regular conformance would be another possibility

Greg: getting lost with the three documents

<jeanne> Regular conformance, Comprehensive conformance, for terms for Full conformance

Jan: I'm not exactly sure what the document is proposing to take out
... full isn't the greatest word, but it's what atag uses and is much as possible I'd like to coordinate between those two. partial don't see that it's a problem, auxiliary hard to pronounce

Jeanne: problems with partial

Jan: the way I see partial conformance is the user doesn't care - they have certain interactive needs and are they or are they not met - partial just as well as part of the puzzle - meeting them and this is why

<jeanne> Partial, Limited, Auxiliary, conformance

Greg: bopping between bits - better to have here's a document we're looking at, here's a list of issues would be easier
... do we have a list

Eric: I have one thing that should be on the list. To put it in perspective the issue of whether - I basically like Jim's distinction between full and partial, whatever it's called is a secondary matter, there is one thing that I thought might be useful in thinking about conformance that was not really in Jim's document. And that was the notion of mandatory requirements. I don't think that...
... was really mentioned at least in quite that way in the document. It might be useful for the group to consider it.

<Greg> The term Partial Conformance isn't used in Jim's doc.

Eric: depending on the type of user agent there may be certain requirements of the document that are mandatory

<jeanne> I agree with Greg. We need a list of issues where we can say we agree and disagree.

Jeanne: example?

Eric: my main point is list of requirements that are mandatory. For auxiliary may be different list. once you have defined the mandatory requirements for each type then you are left with the nonmandatory requirements for each type. Those are the ones for which you read need a reasonto not have them be applicable. It can be useful in terms of making clear what people need to actually do - to...
... distinguish between mandatory requirements and non-mandatory with the idea that it is the non-mandatory requirements for which you need to determine whether they are applicable or not
... you can actually get to the point of enumerating, for this type of user agent here are the mandatory ones that are always going to be applicable and the others are nonmandatory, and then iif you decide they're not applicable you have to have a good reason for it.

<Greg> If Eric's suggesting a matrix of row being level (A,AA,AAA) and column being "mandatory" and "can be N/A", that sounds like a huge change, and one that I'm skeptical of.

Jeanne: strong inclination not to do this - it's adding another level of complication. I think that's making it excessively complicated
... it may cause more confusion for people who are trying to follow the document - not closing my mind to it completely, but would rather we find a solution that is adding complexity.

Greg: it sounds like that would be replacing three levels with the matrix of six - I would be very hesitant - perhaps it would be useful if you come up with examples that we could put into those levels. Perhaps there's a way of denoting that in the document without making the overall structure more complex

<jeanne> This is the current Conformance section in the existing draft <- http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2013/ED-UAAG20-20130108/#conformance

Eric: how many categories do we have - partial and full, and under full, web-based, and another subtype.

Jeanne: that's part of what we're debating

Eric: that's what's in the current document - maybe instead of mandatory, softer approach here's an example of one of each of these, and for this regular one because it's doing this thing there's no reasonable excuse for this not being applicable
... show how the set of applicable requirements is related to your taxonomy.
... I don't see any point in elaborating on this distinction of different types of user agents and then not have them impact directly your definition for your specification of what requirements are applicable

Kelly: I am concerned that we are making it too complicated and some of this would be better as guidance and in implementing document - if you're going to try and do this these are the absolute things you should do versus making them absolutes in - this document is already pretty onerous.
... how do we want to move forward on this, because we probably are on four hours of discussion on this and I don't feel we are any closer to resolution. Eric's taken a stab at it, Jim's taken a stab at it. We have taken stabs in meetings. I am open to suggestions - we aren't done because we're still talking about this. I'd like to stop the discussion and I'd rather talk about ideas on...
... how we close this down.

Jeanne: our current conformance statement is actually pretty simple. I'd like to suggest that we take a look at the existing conformance statement and each of us make a list of what is wrong or unaccessible or needs to be improved in the current conformance statement - the one that is in the document now. I don't think Jim's intention was to move the definition into the conformance section....
... I think some of our confusion is building and building and building on previous proposals, and we've lost where we started from.

Kelly: how do you want to do that - make a survey?

Jeanne: yes - I can do that

<Greg> As I said, it seems to me that we're jumping around and not making much progress.

<Greg> My suggestion is to get back to working in a structured way, working from the the editor's draft and the databases of issues/suggestions people raise regarding it and actions assigned. Vote on suggestions, put them into the next editor's draft, and if necessary and then go on with issues and changes to them there.

<Greg> I like using the Issues database, which helps by giving titles and ID numbers to issues. Having separate versions with different people's suggested changes makes things difficult for me.

<Greg> I think I'm saying I agree with Jeanne's suggestion.

Kelly: we are tapping the discussion at 45 minutes next week. If you have things to say put them in the survey so that we can have a closing down discussion next week. Any objections to that?

<jeanne> there is good language in the other proposals, and I think we can use some of it.

<jeanne> ACTION: jeanne to make a survey of the current conformance section, so people can make comments and changes based on that. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#action01]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-803 - Make a survey of the current conformance section, so people can make comments and changes based on that. [on Jeanne F Spellman - due 2013-02-28].
Recharter - http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2010/uawg_charter.html

Jeanne: recharter by June, need to give information March. Milestones - last call, candidate recommendations,

<jeanne> ACTION: jeanne to make a survey of the charter milestones. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#action02]

<trackbot> Created ACTION-804 - Make a survey of the charter milestones. [on Jeanne F Spellman - due 2013-02-28].

Kelly: survey with those items and asking people's best estimate of when we are going to reach them, just month and year. We've all been in this group for a long time - we all know how quickly we do or don't get things done. I think that's going to be as informative as anything else.
... when we get into the mode of using the surveys we do better as a group. Next week focus and lockdown.
... that will still give three weeks to give Judy what she needs
... take up Eric's feedback next week.

Summary of Action Items
[NEW] ACTION: jeanne to make a survey of the charter milestones. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#action02]
[NEW] ACTION: jeanne to make a survey of the current conformance section, so people can make comments and changes based on that. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/02/21-ua-minutes.html#action01]