Re: how to collaborate with the HTML WG (what works)

Hi al,

>Having removed some of the spurious sources of apparent difference, we were
able to report into the HTML WG meeting on Thursday a status of the issue
that had >some basic agreements about requirements and a plan for next-steps
action.  The HTML WG agreed.

Unfortunately I was not able to be there on thursday, after having read the
minutes of the html wg meet in relation to table headers, I didn't get a
sense that the HTML WG were any closer to agreement on issues surrounding
the implementaion of headers/id in the spec.

Can you provide a clarification?
Specifically was agreement reached that "@headers pointing to TD" or "TH
with @headers pointing to another TH" need to be made conformant in the
HTML5 spec in order to provide the required accessibility hooks for current
AT to be able to convey relationships in complex data tables to users? Or
one of these mechanisms will still be required for irregular data
tables, once the 'smart headers algorithm' is implemented in popular
browsers and future versions of AT?

regards
steve faulknert

2008/11/4 Al Gilman <Alfred.S.Gilman@ieee.org>

>
> Al had some hallway conversations with members of the TAG who expressed
> concern
> as to how to interact with the HTML WG.  Since we think we have a case
> study
> that reflects successful collaboration, we would like to share it more
> widely.
>
> ** summary
>
> PFWG and HTML WG achieved constructive collaboration at TPAC.  The two
> factors that allowed us to do this were:
>
> (a) framing a workable topic for discussion.  right-sizing (and shaping)
> the bite-sized topic.  Find a semi-separable design tradeoff, not
> necessarily a single markup feature or requirement.
>
> (b) separating demand issues (user and author factors) from supply issues
> (markup-and-processing options).
>
> ** details
>
> (a) the topic:
>
> The topic we want to focus on here was "associating table cells with the
> content context on which their interpretation depends."  Not just the
> @headers attribute; that's too small a topic because the performance against
> user needs depends on client processing and to some degree @headers competes
> with @scope.  But not all table markup of interest to accessibility; that's
> too broad.  The associations issue is sufficiently decoupled from other
> issues once the @scope, @headers, and browser algorithms topics are
> included.
>
> (b) supply and demand:
>
> Separating what the user needs in operational terms (in the user
> experience) from markup options allowed us to make incremental progress
> working from the baseline started with the thread at http://
> lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/wai-xtech/2008Sep/thread.html#msg304
>
> On Tuesday in the PFWG meeting, the HTML WG observers confirmed the PFWG
> participants' sense that multiple levels of context information are part of
> the requirement to cover real tables as they are widely used.  We worked
> through differences in vocabulary, realizing that 'nested headers' or
> 'chained headers' were both ways of talking about this same phenomenon.
>  This was progress.
>
> The PFWG participants were able to confirm the HTML WG observers' idea that
> "@headers pointing to TD" and "TH with @headers pointing to another TH" were
> both markup patterns that, married with the right sort of browser and
> authoring processing, could meet this requirement.  This was progress.
>
> Having removed some of the spurious sources of apparent difference, we were
> able to report into the HTML WG meeting on Thursday a status of the issue
> that had some basic agreements about requirements and a plan for next-steps
> action.  The HTML WG agreed.
>
> Al Gilman, co-chair, PFWG
> Janina Sajka, co-chair, PFWG
>
> Coordination note: Chris Wilson and Mike Smith, co-chairs of HTML WG have
> seen this and
> agree it is accurate.
>
> </draft>
>
>
>


-- 
with regards

Steve Faulkner
Technical Director - TPG Europe
Director - Web Accessibility Tools Consortium

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