Re: Multimedia Accessibility <Audio> <Video> Wiki Page

Laura Carlson wrote:
> I started a wiki page for the Multimedia Accessibility (<Audio> 
> <Video>) HTML5 Issue. It is at: 
> http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/MultimediaAccessibilty

I don't understand the reasoning behind creating a separate page on the 
W3C wiki, when there was already one on the WHATWG wiki.  But anyway, I 
have a few comments regarding the initial content of the page:

The page listed proposed solutions ahead of the section for use cases. 
It needs to be the other way around because the use cases and associated 
problems need to be investigated before any solutions can be properly 
evaluated.

The page initally listed the following as use cases.

> *Visual Impaired Users*
> 
> The visual components of a multimedia presentation can't be directly
> accessed by visual impaired users.
> 
> *Deaf or Hard of Hearing*
> 
> Users who are deaf or hard of hearing will not be able to directly
> access auditory information.
> 
> *Users Without the Greatest Connectivity, Software, Hardware*
> 
> Some users may simply not have the latest equipment, software or
> connection speed necessary to access multimedia files.

These are not use cases.  They are more like general descriptions of 
people's disabilities and limitations.  They do not provide much useful 
information for the purpose of evaluating potential solutions.  But they 
do provide a good list of actors for whom to document use cases.  I have 
left them in the wiki, but moved them to a different section from the 
Use Cases.

I provided relatively good examples of use cases in the WHATWG wiki, 
which you are free to use as a basis.  But here's another example to get 
you started anyway:

---
*An Author with limited resources publishes a video log*

An author records a regular video log with his web cam on his home 
computer.  He has limited technical experience with video editing 
software and does not have sufficient time, skill or financial resources 
available to create and publish closed captions on the video.

However, as part of his routine, the author types up a script of what he 
is going to say before recording, and he wants to make it available for 
people who cannot or do not want to watch the video.  In addition to the 
video, he generally publishes a short introductory blog entry within 
which to include the video and a caption below.

The author is not particularly skilled with HTML either, and generally 
uses the WYSIWYG editor within his CMS to create and publish his blog 
entires, and copies and pastes the markup given to him by the video 
hosting service.

The author wants to put the transcript on a separate page rather than 
within the main blog entry, but still wants to make it easy for anyone 
to access.
---

I've included that use case in the wiki as a starting point.  Note how 
the use case is significantly more than a single sentence that describes 
a person's abilities.  It also provides relevant information about what 
the author is doing, describes his technical abilities and the kind of 
information he is capable of providing.  This allows us to derive 
authoring requirements, which can then be used to evaluate any potential 
solutions.

Authoring Requirements:
* A way to link from within the blog entry to the transcript.
* Easy for all people to access.
* It needs to be reasonably clear that the link is to a transcript for 
the video.
* Can't require too much, if any, manual editing of HTML markup

End User Requirements can be derived from use cases that deal with the 
end users.  I have included both an Authoring Requirements and an End 
User Requirements section in the wiki for this purpose.

-- 
Lachlan Hunt - Opera Software
http://lachy.id.au/
http://www.opera.com/

Received on Thursday, 11 September 2008 20:11:35 UTC