- From: Gregory J. Rosmaita <oedipus@hicom.net>
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:02:47 +0000
- To: wai-xtech@w3.org, wai-liaison@w3.org
[Reviewer's Note: this post refers to the Candidate Recommendation draft of CSS 2.1, http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-CSS21-20070719 comments upon which are due by 20 December 2007] Given the following use case: Aural rendering is used to provide supplemental contextual and semantic markers for an individual with either limited vision, or a limited view-port, such as that obtained by using a screen-magnifier application, which displays strings of text in isolated viewports, with earcons (purely aural cues) set to "on", but without speech output. Such a user uses aural cues, provided by such extant mechanisms as: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/aural.html#cue-props http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/aural.html#mixing-props http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/aural.html#spatial-props to supplement that user's constrained point of view. Note that this use case includes those who fall under the purview of such organizations as Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (http://www.rfbd.org) Note that some users will benefit from viewing portions of the screen using a screen-magnifier and aural cues; but that there are also those who not only need isolated portions of the visual canvas rendered for them, but whose understanding and ability to interact with the document benefits greatly from supplemental synthesized speech; How, then, can speech be seperated from audio? The Style WG should be wary of the seperation of speech and pure aural rendering rules, as there is one modality being addressed: the aural canvas, whether that includes speech-synthesis or purely earconic sounds. The question, therefore, is this: What is the point of changing the media type from aural to speech? Speech synthesizers are aural renderers, but they rely on a third party application (optimally, a DOM-aware user agent) in order to obtain the content, flow, etc. of the speech-output. If a user agent supports speech, as does FireVox, it also needs to support the purely aural (earconic) portions of the media rule; speech synthesizers are not user agents, they are more akin to browser helper objects (BHO) than they are to user agents per se. SUMMATION: The deprecation of the aural media type in favor of the speech media type, is unacceptable, as there are valid use cases where an individual benefits from supplemental earcons that sound while viewing the visual canvas through a screen-magnifier type view-port, without speech output, but with support for a pure audio (non-speech) overlay; likewise, there is the use case of an individual who benefits from supplemental speech, as well as a limited viewport and aural orientational and contextual cues. Why is it necessary for Aural CSS2.1 to remain normative? The aural cascade will enable an author to offer visitors is a choice between "verbose" "terse" and "earconic" overlays. SSML may be where the money and resources are currently devoted, but Aural CSS is far superior for speech-output dependent computer users (that is, the average end user) because things aren't hard coded, but are subject to user over-rides. It's obviously a lot easier to wizardize a "modify this site's aural styling", which would allow the end user the final say over what is spoken and how, than to edit an SSML document's document source. An added benefit of retaining the purely aural portions of ACSS is that, if both speech and purely aural styling are addressed in the same stylesheet, it reduces the burden on the author, allows for end-user override, and it increases the probability of the implementation of both forms of painting to the aural canvas. PROPOSED RESOLUTION: 1. The PF WG requests that the editors and Working Group de-deprecate the "aural" media type and deprecate the "speech" media type 2. The PF WG requests that Appendix A be renamed to Chapter/Section 19 and made normative ---------------------------------------------------------------- CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. -- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Gregory J. Rosmaita, oedipus@hicom.net Camera Obscura: http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/index.html ----------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 03:03:06 UTC