W3C

WAI-AGE Task Force, EOWG
13 May 2008

Agenda

  1. Welcome
  2. Participation
  3. Work statement
  4. Literature review
  5. Next meeting

Attendees

Present
Andrew Arch, Shawn Henry, Shadi Abou-Zahra, Nacho Madrid, Jack Welsh, Suzette Keith, Judy Brewer, Susanna Laurin, Panayiotis Zaphiris, Helle Bjarnø, William Loughborough, Jeanne Spellman
Regrets
Michael Stenitzer
Chair
Andrew
Scribe
Jeanne

Contents


Welcome and Introductions

AA Welcomed people to the call and asked everyone to introduce themselves briefly, and send some more background to the EOWG list as they join.

JB Inroduced the WAI-AGE project
... working on issues foir people with disabiloities for over 10 year
... always interestewd in older poeple, but haven't addressed specifically in the past
... don't always identify as disabled, even though have impoairments
... Commission was intereseted in the topic

JB: The urrent project focus is on literature review
... The Literature Review contains extensive information on what is available on ageing.
... Another part of the project is involvement of people in the WAI group
... Looking for new materials for outreach and revision of some of our existing materials to broaden our materials and make them more relevant to ageing communities.
... Finally, standards coordination. We want to bring in items that are missing in other places.

participation

AA: Talking about participation and expectations
... WAI-AGE task force falls under Education and Outreach Working Group that is part of the Web Accessibility Initiative.
... Part of the expectation of joining is that you will participate in mailing lists, participate in EO WG activities.

SAZ: Most of you are interested in ageing and accessibility, some are interested in Mobile Web. This is an excellent opportunity to particiapate in other areas of EO. If you have any interests or questions, contact Shawn Henry.
... If you have questions on the Task Force, contact Andrew or Shadi.

SAZ: The main method of communication is the Mailing list, we also have the teleconference which you are participating in. Another way to communicate is the IRC channel where you can see the minutes being scribed.
... there are directions to setting up IRC and scribing.

See:

Question: Is this two times a week or two times a month?

SAZ: Monthly. We go through a sign-up process to make sure that everyone is participating under the same terms. The W3C Patent Policy makes sure that the work is all public, open source or avilable without royalty.

AA: Some people who are having difficulty with the process, we will help offline.
... We will appreciate sharing the scribing process so it is rotating and each member just does it occaisionally.

work statement

AA: Web Accessibility and Ageing Task Force (WAI-AGE TF) Work Statement

SAZ: the work statement describes the scope of the work.
... In this task force most of the work will be developed by the WAI-AGE staff.
... The literature review is the first phase. It is an EO deliverable. EO will have the final say on publishing.
... IF you are a Participant in Good Standing with EO, you have a vote on whether the document will be published.
... If you are not in good standing, you do not have a vote.
... We want your expert view in what should be included in the document.

JB: The link in the Agenda to the Task Force statement is the old one. There is an updated link.
... WAI-AGE Task Force Work Statement, latest version: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2008/wai-age-tf.html/

AAapologised for sending the old URI with the agenda

JB: The changes that were made to clarify it. I don't think there were any substantive changes.
... We would like to include the names of the people joining to the participants list.
... Edited to make it more clear what the Task Force does vs. the Working Group.

Literature Review

AA: We have been researching into what others have been saying about ageing and the Web.
... All of you have seen some version of the draft. You have some familiarity of the earlier version. We would like some feedback on your thoughts on the earlier version?

JW: It did a great job bringing thoughts together.
... Talks about the ageing population in functional terms. It brings disabilities into the context of the ageing population.
... I'd be very interested to hear from different people who have been doing this work. I want to hear their reactions.

WL: This is a remarkable piece of scholarship. I have been thinking about sharing it with a colleague and realized that it was a daunting amount of work. I was wondering about a "view from 50,000 feet".
... Many of us have parents at that age and are interested in the results.

AA: This is meant to be a thorough review. The second round of this project will be looking at that, and seeing what new material needs to be written for developers and also for other groups who may want to be coaching the ageing how to use the Web.

PZ: Nice work. Many new thoughts. Seems to be focusing on classic accessibility. Social element of web, social networking activities seem to be missing.
... You address on p. 24 [of my printed copy] issues of accessibility problems with forms, search, navigation. What about Facebook and Web 2 type applications?
... Are you going to include that, or just stay with search and other traditional activities on the web?

AA: This seems to be one of the obvious gaps that I wanted to ask about.

PZ: There are online communities for older people. Is that something you want to cover?

SL: In Sweden, the ageing want to have contact with their families and have social networking with others of their own age. They are producers, not just consumers of the web.

SAZ: Many users have their own interests in the web. There are two aspects: the social aspect of how it is used, and the technical aspect of how the applications can be made accessible.

PZ: Do we want to cover these issues broadly? Or do we want to limit it to the technical?

JB: I don't think we want to limit. Other parts of WAI are focusing on Web 2.0 and the participatory parts of the web.
... including what people do with the web would be a very nice thing to include in a final report.

PZ: In reference to our own study, there are some comments by Clarke, I think I will send to AA the revised report. The comments were addressed in the final report.

NM: We need a deeper analysis on the cognitive aspect of ageing. Not just those related to disabilities, but also normal ageing.
... I will send to AA and WAI-AGE some comments later on.

SK: There is a lot of focus on a medical model of disability and ageing. My interests tend more to the social issues of ageing. What the older people actually want to do.
... Older people use systems in a voluntary capacity, they may be more likely to have shared machines, rather than have a computer at home. How does this fit? It doesn't seem to fit in the WAI guidelines.

HB: They want larger icons and need for eye-hand coordination, sensory and mobility limitation. We need to be aware of the cognitive and sensory changes as we get older.

SAZ: There is a need for discussing accessibility and the gray area with usability.
... This discussion is a tough one, it comes up whenever there is a discussion on accessibility. I hope this group will help take it to the next level.

SH: The social aspects are quite interesting, it would be good to explore it in the literature review. In future work, it may be out of scope, but I think it would be useful to explore it at this stage.

AA: I appreciate your comments and any details of material that we may have overlooked.

next meeting

AA: Planning to meet twice a month, until we move into the next part of the work.

AA: What times definitely do not work? We will send a questionaire to choose the time.

JB: What about the possibility of meeting two weeks from now, which would be the 27th at this time? Does this time work for the people who are here? We want to keep the momentum in this discussion.

All: The time works for members on the call.

<scribe> ACTION: AA will check with the members who aren't here. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/05/13-waiage-minutes.html#action01]

AA: We will have a meeting in the future, two weeks from today. I will follow up with those who are having difficulty signing up. We will stay in touch by email.

Summary of Action Items

[NEW] ACTION: AA will check with the members who aren't here regarding the next meeting time as 27 May 2008. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2008/05/13-waiage-minutes.html#action01]
 
[End of minutes]

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$Date: 2008/05/23 18:54:18 $