W3C

EOWG MINUTES 10 Jul 2009

Agenda

  1. (if needed) WAI slides instructions - discuss comments sent to the EOWG list
  2. Benefits of WCAG 2 ppt 800KB, HTML - approve for publication
  3. Business Case Appendix
  4. Components of Web Accessibility - revisting old "tutorial". potential presentation format. does it work? what is needed besides clean up graphics and add WAI-ARIA?
  5. Accessibility page for beta.w3.org (e.g., see I18N) and other blurbs - brainstorm focus, content, tone
  6. Reminders

Attendees

Present
Shawn, Doyle, Sharron, Yeliz, Heather, Liam, Song, Jack, Jennifer, Shadi
Regrets
LisaP, Helle, William, Sylvie, Andrew
Chair
Shawn
Scribe
Doyle

Contents


<Shawn> Hi Doyle. we have several topics for today but some of them will probably be short since there were no comments sent to the list.

WAI slides instructions

Shawn: From the 24 th of June. I did not see any comments. Anyone want to discuss the slides instructions?
... consider this done. If you think of comments later on, please send a message to the list or let me know.

Heather: I think it looks great.

Benefits of WCAG 2

Shawn: The status is that we have the Powerpoint and now, thanks to Sharron, we have the HTML version. There are two possible open issues to the presentation. Shadi requested clarification on how we cover the techniques. We did what we thought was a quick solution. Shadi said he will accept that change but would like still more clarification. The second issue is with Slide 8, "Cooperation with accessibility policies." We'd like for this slide to have more information. We waiting for input from Judy & shadi on that.

Sharron: Can we publish without resolution to these two issues?

Shawn: We have an old version from Sept 2008. I propose that we move this version to the main place so that if people are following links they will land on the updated version. But we will wait a week or two before we announce it and try to resolve the issues in that time.
...Once posted, we will put a time frame on the issue resolution, and then announce
... What do you think about that approach?

Sharron: Wouldn't it be more urgent if we make publication dependent on issue resolution?

Shawn: for that one slide.
... At some point we announce. In a week or two just announce. I would rather not let this small matter delay the announcement.
... Comments? Putting in place as a draft.

Sharron: yes, seems fine. And there is a change marker around images not rendering in Firefox, but they seem to all be here.

Shawn: While we are looking, let's take the opportunity to have the group look at the HTML version in different configurations.

Sharron: The HTML images in both browsers look fine. Back to the cooperation slide...do we have draft content? Do we need to develop content for it?

Shawn: Some of the stuff in the previous version has been taken out after internal review.
Are there any other comments? Please look at it. Sylvie was waiting for the HTML version. comments? If no objection, then we will move this version and work on resolving the two minor issues.

Business Case Appendix

Shawn: Next the Business Case Appendix. Liam did you want to move detailed review to next week?

Liam: No, I am on vacation next week. Can we put it on the agenda in two weeks time?

Shawn: Any comments about how it is going?

Liam: I am trying to pull a small set of articles. I am trying to do that before developing a categorization structure. coming in more recent stuff publishing ability, or forms on disability and so forth. No one source really. It's looking at specific general access we'd need to pull an article ourselves. Trying to join great figures in various articles. Many cite examples, like Legal and General and SOCOG, but am not finding actual source documentation.

Shawn: That is what I found.

Liam: [To make for a presentation slide, I'd write down and others to write down for the slides.[?] Perhaps best to go to the source. Does anyone in the group have any suggestions for this? who to approach?

Sharron: Julie Howell, talks about this she was the one who did it.

Shawn: The consultant on it was her and her compnay. There was also a guy, whose name I do not recal right now, who could approached for more information.

Liam: Are there any other suggestions for direct contacts?

Shawn: for SOCOG, it would be Bruce Maguire.

Liam: That's not really a case study of benefits.

Shawn: In the business case a benefit is avoiding risk of legal action. Publish the cost to Target for trying to avoid accessibility. Which is astounding, by the way.

Jennifer: How could it cost so much?

Shawn: It is cheaper to make sites accessible than to fight the legal battle. What about SEO and accessibililty?

Liam: Most of what is written is by me or people I know. It is an opportunity for an article to pull together related case studies or research. I would compare our methodology for improving with the SEO for improving for Google, to show the enormous overlap.

Shawn: How much do we want to do? Shall we include pointers for people to investigate on their own, or bring together information and point to that. Obviously the latter is better for users but takes a lot more time. If there are topics where we don't have time we can do the first.

Liam: I thought the first option, but now, having read them, they really do need some comment. Give contextual information. To present on a single page I am not sure. I think it better to have on each of the well known. Because that will draw in people anyway. Take a wikipedia view on this. All we say this is true this is true. If we find hard numbers we can get through personal contacts they would need to be published outside this and referenced.

Shawn: comments?

Sharron: what about more obscure things. The quoted IRS stats about return on the accommodation of PWD and also referenced IP accommodation. Is that useful?

Liam: yes. Everyone email a list of suggestions to me.

Sharron: I've referenced this a couple of times. It is supportive though pretty general. An IRS survey that estimates that for every dollar businesses spend on accommodation, they get 25 back.

Shawn: Should we go ahead put a request on the EO list.

Liam: That would be great.

Shawn: Beyond our active group, about twenty plus subscribe to the EOWG list. Anybody could find out about the request once it is on that list.

Liam: We don't have to be very explicit, and that would help. Can we hit guys who are W3C members, that are involved with some figures?

Doyle:I don't have figures.

Jack: I don't know if I have seen any figures that anything more than anecdotal. I'm not sure how solid and substantive they are.

Liam: A quotable anecdote is fine as well. Like a recognizable brand that might encourage others to take the leap.

Jack: OK, I'll look into it.

Shawn: other comments?
... we have other contacts with these organizations. it is entirely appropriate to send a message to a member list for information they would be willing to share. I'd like to wait until we have a draft to show them.

Liam: Has anyone heard of Tom Brink, recently wrote a chapter on the cost of usability?

Shawn: He has been at a UPA conference, but I don't know him personally. Do you want an introduction?

Liam: It is a long difficult chapter. I can't check his references because I only see it online. Does anyone own the book so I can cross check?

Yeliz: what is the title?

Liam: Cost Price and Usability, edited by Deborah Mayhew and Randolph Bias.

Sharron: I know Randolph, he is here in Austin.

Liam: yes please. introduction would be fantastic.

Shawn: I will see if Tom is on a list of usability.

Sharron: I will make the intro.

Liam: Include Jennifer too.

Jennifer: After the information is more of a draft. I will hunt up some of the links that I have bookmarked.

Shawn: I did a mailing list for that. I have subscribed Jennifer and Liam. That list the archive is only visible to internal W3C staff. You can be subscribed. Anyone can send to the list. Anyone else want to be subscribed to that list?

Jack: Yes I would like to be.

Liam: we are trying to pull together information for making a business case for accessibility. Something purely anecdotal would be great.
... The manual will be published soon. Anecdotal information that accessibility is important and can demonstrate increased returns.

Heather: At IBM, we don't have exact numbers. No one in the different divisions tracks that, as far as I know. I have a pitch that I do. We have a policy within the corporate instruction division that everyone has to adhere to 508, and a checklist which includes 508 and WCAG 2.0. IBM emphasizes accessibility especially for learning. With all learning applications that users can access internally and externally.

Shawn: It would be really good to have information about that... a short quote or something. Talks about the business benefits.

Heather: Shoot me an email Liam?

Shawn:One thing nice to have, Liam, would be one or two of what you want, then we can say to others "like this" to have some exemplary one to point to.
Questions or comments?

Liam: any other representatives from large groups and organizations it would be nice to have.

Shawn: we can get a fair number of those. I get anecdotal stuff a lot. Need draft, examples: Here is where we want to say something.

Liam: Wear a little badge to say "this is on the record" at conferences.

Shawn: Anything else on the business case appendix?
This is covered for now. Put on the 24th of July agenda. Have by the Wednesday before, so people can prepare in advance of the meeting.

Components of Web Accessibility

Shawn: Some time ago we created a tutorial to have the intention of maintaining a self-instructional tutorial. We used the W3C slides, and didn't like the user interface. So we parked it. Now that we are finishing the Benefits of WCAG 2 slides, and have some slide sets for the near future, the question is: Should we use that format? For presentation format Power point with lots of notes. or HTML format use for accessibility not optimum for self study tutorial, but may be useful as a own presentatio

Jennifer: So that it has the same look and feel as the others?

Shawn: Yes, so please look through the old tutorial, with the old format. I don't know exactly what everyone will get when looking this up. The screen reader may not get both HTML and .. the slide format. The next link is the potential presentation format. Where the slides have very little text. And notes underneath. The link presentation format. Item number four. The link to presentation format. Turning into one of our series that is available. Do you have any comments?
... We are looking for an overall impression. We will look this over later too. Getting started. What is your general feeling about how this might work? In this format? Especially if released with others like it?

Liam: The old presentation is much prettier. This might effect learning. The new presentation is not really speaker notes. Speaker notes are for reading out when presenting the slides. Why aren't the notes contained in the image?

Shawn: The previous was designed as a self study tutorial. What if we presented this as a presentation you could use for self study but could also use as a presentation. One point is that the previous format was better for self study. If the user interface was intuitive and useable by everybody. If we polished for a presentation how much use would it get? Like the others, slides for showing, and speaker notes. Will people use it?

Sharron: Do we understand how much people are using the ones that are currently avaialble?

Shawn: we don't. I get anecdotal comments. We ask but no one has told us.

Sharron: Then it seems it would be hard to know.

Shadi: In that respect. I'm wondering what the difference is how people use them so far. It would be useful to learn more about. Is this where we want to be?
... for example I hear people can't find the slides. Finding them is an issue. Knowing that they exist is an example.

Shawn: We have had drafts out, but we have not really announced and promoted. Especially as a series, we could get this done easily. Announced and promoted, we are likely to get a lot more uptake.

Sharron: In Texas the DIR is charged with supporting accessibility in all state agencies. I have told them that there are free tutorials on the WAI pages, free to use. They don't understand how this relates to their charge to promote Section 508. They say 508 is different. They seem like good candidates for knowing about and using these.

Shawn: I think we have not said much about 508. Certainly an opportunity for communicating the relationship. WCAG2 has a whole lot more support material.

Sharron: I advocate for doing that.

Shawn: WCAG 2 and the new 508 will be a lot closer. Pointing to the couple of things on line. I had a venn diagram of the overlap between 508 and WCAG.

Jennifer: People want to check off boxes and be done. That's hard to fight against.

Shadi: I think that is such a good point. I remember the developer world we are in an age list beyond checklist, and now they revive.

Jennifer: I look through a bunch of stuff with old business cards. For WCAG 2 quick tips?

Shawn: we will create the WCAG2 quick tips.

Shadi: I like some of those ideas. Spend a bit more time with EO thinking about this. Development ride the wave or direct it.

Shawn: we have quick tipped WCAG 2 cards are drafted. The content is done for the at a glance. The design is drafted but is held up for now.

Shadi: I would like to address the check lists and use the Quick Tips for that sort of perspective.

Shawn: we did a few weeks ago, and nice to revisit.

Jennifer: I think from a new person perspective. I wonder thinking back to the DAISY consortium modules that are within a knowledge base. Setting up the presentation slides in an order for presenting step by step. Volume one and so forth.

Shawn: Yes. We announced the WCAG 2 presentation. We had a WAI presentation. We talked about WCAG 2 which would take an hour, and we talked about breaking up into separate pieces. We don't have enough now to have a nice order.

Jennifer: would this prove to be useful? My thinking is does this fill a niche a gap or learning order, or repeat what other slides will say?

Shawn: It definitely fills a gap. We have a lot of documents and they are heavy. We look at a fairly easy from our resources to present the information to read through a long text document.

Jennifer: I think that too, I don't have time to read all that.

Shawn: Other specific or general comments?

Sharron: If this is converted to the HTML template, will we provide an associated power point?

Shawn: I am assuming yes. A lot of people still use power point.
... we could look at how hard or easy to offer the tutorial user interface. We thought some problems with that. We didn't have time to investigate, but we could still make that one of the options. Not intuitive. Works for great for me. I don't remember what the screen readers does for that.

Jennifer: I could check that. I will take as action to do.

Shawn: If you click on that link I get a single HTML page, with one H1 and I can advance with the right arrow and go to the next slide. If you press A you get all the slides on one page. A is a toggle.

Jennifer: I will check out.

Shawn: Comments?

Liam: I have one suggestion the final slide. Contacting WAI it might be more effective if it offered more than simple contact. Have a bit on how to use this.

Shawn: OK Let me take an action to do with the others.

Liam: On the third page, it would be great to say what it covers. Because you are likely to see this page that it's on. A lot of people would just see that one. It is good to have this short introdution about what is covered and some trigger words to be sure they are on the right track, to be sure they get what they are expecting.

Shawn: we had that in the instruction page. An overview of the content. How do we balance repeating the information and are they less likely to look at the other page. Thoughts on that?
... put trigger words at the beginning and still have links to that page. Those comments go for all the presentation. Thoughts on that?

Liam: Aren't there only four keys? The only interface information there is a key. Why not use the left arrow to get back? And right one to advance.

Shawn: In the old version there were left and right arrows. Those no longer exist. That is a point, when we did this, we used Slide Maker. Slidy fixed some of those problems. We may be OK on some of those problems. Ok
... I'll take another pass at this. Much easier for self study. I have a question. The graphics if you go to authoring tools creating we content slide. Currently decorative images, but they have content. Look at the slide. Slide 12 of 19. H1 is Authoring Tools Creating Web Content. Image with a dialogue box.

Liam: Spelling mistakes?

Shawn: It is easiest to send email to WAI editors. Question on the images. Real quickly as an example we wanted a stuck dialogue box and alt text box here. Make this a nicer image? What is your feeling? Really needing cleaning up or put them out as is?

Doyle: Put them out.

Liam: I vote for putting them out. We can improve them afterwards.

Sharron: yes I think a good idea.

Shawn: And we can say to members of the group that if you want to volunteer to clean up the images, you can put your name somewhere. Anything else? Next.

Accessibility page for beta.w3.org

Shawn: The current hope is for the new site with this proposed design to go live next month. Notice that the new site design has pages for each topic. Also higher up, there are different little paragraph descriptions of accessibility. We can say pretty much what we want here. I will be working on content and am looking for EO input. Since we have some time today, I'd like to show you what the page might look like and get your input on tone, content etc.
...the first link is a place holder page for the accessibility content. We might have more to consider if we look at the I18N example. To see the general size and content of an example of what we might want to do.

<Shawn> http://beta.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility

<Shawn> http://beta.w3.org/standards/webdesign/i18n.html

Shawn: Please take some time to skim through these pages and get an idea of what we might want to do within the accessibility pages.
...this is kind of an overview, we currently have a document about introducing people to web accessibility. With the new site let's imagine they land on this accessibility page. What tone, approach to the page, would you all suggest?

Liam: Are we phasing out the term WAI? I don't see much mention of it here, and it WAI still seems great about saying what we are all about.

Shawn: I don't think we will. We will use a bread crumb. WAI has a fairly strong brand in some areas. We have to look at what we want to do with that. A good question.

<Shawn> ACTION: Shawn http://beta.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility.html and "WAI" branding [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/07/10-eo-minutes.html#action01]

Liam: The other thing would be the kind of structure used within these pages is pretty critical. We want to look at the aims and goals that varous people will bring to using the site. My concern that much navigation is on the right and most will read down the middle first. Can they get to it from within the main content? People may have trouble finding the stuff on the right. (eye tracking shows no one read the right column)

Shawn: Good point.

Liam: This is presented on the third root of the accessibility section of the site. It feels like more of an about us section than a what you can do here section.

Shawn: The internationalization page that we are looking at as an example combines both of those things.

Liam: It does eventually, but you have to read an awful lot to get to anything action oriented.

Jennifer: Yes, you really do have to read a lot.

Liam: I suggest that we start with what people want, why they come to these pages, what they may want to find or do. What's the next stage?
...[links at the end of the page] the HTML working group is a bad place to end up learning about accessibility. This is where you want to give them the idea about WCAG 2

Jack: Looking at the internationalziation page, it reads like a text book. It certainly is not action oriented. It seems to be telling me what I am looking for. If I was trying to do something, I don't think the International page helps. It does give great background conceptual info. But there is no real driver to do anything. Great background information. But most people coming to this would want something else.

Shawn: OK

Liam: The emphasis is currently what the group does rather than what the reader can do.

Jack: It is content driven rather than reader driven. Rather than facilitating the reader taking action. As Liam says it is not reader driven. Great information. The kind of information you would be focused on if you didn't have anything to do.

Shawn: Thanks for this good feedback.

Liam: It is also missing a feedback mechanism.

Shawn: In general that is a good issue - to watch for response. not getting enough feedback. On the current website we don't get much feedback. Internationalization was going to do somethihng to get feedback, I still haven't check on that.

I hope you are all subscribed to the WAI IG (interest group) email. WAI calls for review and request for document input and other things are announced there. Most are not repeated on the EO list so you will need to get from other sources.
Other thoughts? We would want to figure out how this relates to our home page. The current WAI home page will stay as it is for now.
... We'll need to see if that remains the case.

Other things when we land on this accessbiilty page what do we want to say, or people to get out of the page.

Liam: I want them to get what they want.

Shawn: we need to define what people want.

Liam: You can take an educated guess. I think people use it for many varied things. We know most of our user groups. With the user case is where to start.

Shawn: The old site redesign we can use for that. We grouped two groups, techies and fuzzies. Technical details and business case stuff, etc.

Jennifer: We need more in the fuzzie category, something more for end users. Than you typically have within the WAI pages.

Shawn: and we'll have more too. In a year and two months for users with disabilities.

Liam: Change the section to be called something like what I can use it for.

Shawn: The headings listed here are only suggested, we certainly can change them.

Liam: how about we nicely set out something like "make my web site more accessible or tell someone else how to make more accessible." Perhaps a little tree of goals?
... inlcude how can I help the W3C also.

<Shawn> 1. make my site ax

<Shawn> 2. tell someone else how to make site ax

<Shawn> 3. how help w3c

<Shawn> 4. user materials!

Shawn: OK, any other thoughts? Somebody volunteer do a quick analysis of goals, etc. for this page?

<Shawn> Liam: inspired!

Liam: I suppose the function of the first page is - what is accessibility.

Jack: inspired part of it is what Sharron was talking about earlier. Becoming part of a larger effort, and not feeling that you are all on your own. Besides being inspired this is a great resource.

<Shawn> Liam: With your help we are changing the world

Liam: with your help we are changing the world.

<Shawn> vision from redesign: http://www.w3.org/WAI/redesign/analysis-sum#vision

Shawn: The redesigned WAI Web site:

... lets' go back and look at the requirements for the last redesign. A lot has not changed from the user and audience analysis.

Liam: Making this the definitive resource is quite important. I still have conversation with clients who ask what is WCAG, is it based on Bobby?

Shawn: [pained AH!]

Jennifer: (I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to.)

Shawn: ya, I have heard of things meeting "Bobby Standards".

Liam: It was good thing.

Shawn: Definitely.

Liam: Come up with a clear statement, W3C is the defacto international standards body.

Shawn: currently have on home page WAI "guidelines widely regarded as the international standard for Web accessibility."

Liam: Drop widely regarded and it is fine.

Shawn: We have been more comfortable with saying this is the standard for accessibility. We could revisit our tag line, which is "Strategies, guidelines, resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities". Especially a tag line. Versus in a sentence everyone would be more comfortable.

Liam: All other standards are based on this.

Sharron: That would be a good point and useful to the Texas DNR

Shawn: In reality it is best for other people to do that, to more clearly make that statement.

Jack: part of the challenge is to show the relationship between this guideline and other guidelines. Others are derived from W3C guidelines. The others are adaptations. With emphasis on particular conditions or local conditions. To convey what you want.

Shawn: OK, these are good thoughts. Any closing comments for now?

<Liam> Early apologies for next week - I will be on vacation.

Reminders

Shawn: Thank you for the input. Reminders are on the agenda is on the home WAI page. Monitor the list or be in the group. Next week we have a preleminary agenda. Check back by the middle of next week. We'll have some more specific agenda. We will move for the 24th the business case appendix. July 31st slight chance it won't happen.

Jennifer: What is the status of the contacting organization document?

Shawn: We are going through it for next phase editing. We won't see it again as agroup until August.

Jennifer: I have seen some things to edit.

Shawn: Please send your observations to the EO editors list.

Shawn: I also wanted to remind everyone to register if at all possible for the face-to-face meeting 5-6 November 2009 in Santa Clara. There is a $50 per day attendance fee to help offset some of the expenses. Reserve your hotel to help make the guaranteed numbers, please. Also a reminder that we are seeking EO participation either as a list monitor or a full participant in the W3C Open Web Education Alliance Incubator Group. Have a great weekend and we'll talk next week.

Summary of Action Items

[NEW] ACTION: Shawn http://beta.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility.html and "WAI" branding [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2009/07/10-eo-minutes.html#action01]

[End of minutes]

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