15:02:08 <RRSAgent> RRSAgent has joined #html-a11y
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15:02:10 <trackbot> RRSAgent, make logs world
15:02:12 <trackbot> Zakim, this will be 2119
15:02:13 <trackbot> Meeting: HTML Accessibility Task Force Teleconference
15:02:13 <trackbot> Date: 18 August 2011
15:02:28 <Zakim> Zakim has joined #html-a11y
15:02:40 <MikeSmith> Zakim, this will be 2119
15:03:33 <Zakim> ok, MikeSmith; I see WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM scheduled to start 2 minutes ago
15:03:41 <Judy> Judy has joined #html-a11y
15:03:59 <MikeSmith> Zakim, call Mike
15:04:07 <LeonieWatson> zakim, mute me
15:05:05 <Zakim> ok, MikeSmith; the call is being made
15:05:24 <Zakim> sorry, LeonieWatson, I don't know what conference this is
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15:05:39 <Judy> zakim, who's here?
15:05:42 <MikeSmith> Zakim, this is 2119
15:05:54 <janina> zakim, who's here?
15:06:01 <janina> trackbot, start meeting
15:06:03 <trackbot> RRSAgent, make logs world
15:06:05 <trackbot> Zakim, this will be 2119
15:06:06 <Marco_Ranon> Marco_Ranon has joined #html-a11y
15:06:06 <trackbot> Meeting: HTML Accessibility Task Force Teleconference
15:06:06 <trackbot> Date: 18 August 2011
15:06:39 <janina> zakim, who's here?
15:06:54 <Judy> zakim, who's here?
15:07:02 <Zakim> WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM has not yet started, Judy
15:07:10 <Zakim> ok, MikeSmith; that matches WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM
15:07:11 <Marco_Ranon> \me sorry I'm late. I'll be on the phone in 5 - 10 minutes
15:07:12 <janina> zakim, this will be 2119
15:07:40 <Zakim> On the phone I see Cynthia_Shelly, Mike, Judy, ??P14, ??P19
15:07:42 <Stevef> Stevef has joined #html-a11y
15:07:44 <Zakim> ok, trackbot; I see WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM scheduled to start 6 minutes ago
15:08:00 <Zakim> I notice WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM has restarted
15:08:03 <MikeSmith> Topic: Subteam reports
15:08:03 <richardschwerdtfe> richardschwerdtfe has joined #html-a11y
15:08:04 <Zakim> On the phone I see Cynthia_Shelly, Mike, Judy, ??P14, ??P19
15:08:08 <Zakim> +??P2
15:08:18 <Zakim> On the phone I see Cynthia_Shelly, Mike, Judy, ??P14, ??P19, ??P2
15:08:29 <MikeSmith> LeonieWatson: next bug-triage subteam meeting is Tuesday
15:08:30 <Zakim> On IRC I see Marco_Ranon, janina, Judy, Zakim, RRSAgent, LeonieWatson, MikeSmith, trackbot, [tm]
15:08:34 <Zakim> ok, janina; I see WAI_PFWG(HTML TF)11:00AM scheduled to start 7 minutes ago
15:09:29 <LeonieWatson> zakim, mute me
15:09:32 <Zakim> sorry, LeonieWatson, I don't know what conference this is
15:09:50 <MikeSmith> Topic: canvas subteam
15:10:05 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: have a draft of focus management, text baseline
15:10:13 <MikeSmith> ... Charles Pritchard helping
15:10:53 <MikeSmith> ... have most of the CP written. Next is clickable regions
15:11:15 <MikeSmith> ... based on feedback from Maciej, waiting for clickable regions
15:11:42 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: when will the focus-management writeup be ready?
15:11:58 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: waiting on Charles for that
15:12:20 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: we're reusing the same names that Hixie had originally
15:12:31 <MikeSmith> ... slight difference in API calls
15:12:38 <MikeSmith> ... but fairly close
15:12:53 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: if you can forward something to me, I will pass it on
15:12:58 <MikeSmith> RRSAgent, make minutes
15:12:58 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2011/08/18-html-a11y-minutes.html MikeSmith
15:13:29 <MikeSmith> Topic: Text-alternative subteam
15:13:44 <MikeSmith> Judy: teleconference resumed this Monday
15:14:01 <MikeSmith> ... had a hiatus during end of LC
15:14:28 <MikeSmith> Judy: we rediscussed approach around, e.g., discoverability
15:14:48 <MikeSmith> ... I hoping we will see a response from John Foliot before he heads away for vacation
15:15:18 <JF> JF has joined #html-a11y
15:15:25 <MikeSmith> ... idea is to have dialog on the counterproposal from Jonas and see how far we get with that, have a dialog before the chairs proceed with survey
15:15:47 <MikeSmith> Judy: next we took up meta@name=generator
15:16:18 <MikeSmith> ... next step on that is for janina, and we need to get the TF feedback on writeup from Steve Faulkner
15:16:30 <MikeSmith> Judy: next meeting is next Monday
15:17:12 <MikeSmith> Judy: we discussed feedback on the bug that was filed during LC, about refinement on conformance assessment, concern about overly-long figcaption case
15:17:33 <MikeSmith> ... we asked a few people to get some evidence on the amount of problems with figcaptions of different lengths
15:18:00 <MikeSmith> ... some of the respondents on the bug were not aware of the UX around figcaption
15:18:57 <MikeSmith> Judy: we had at some point considered having another subteam to discuss the TF decision policy and the HTML WG decision policy
15:20:01 <MikeSmith> Stevef: question about the length of figcaption... I think this question is at least partially relies on the way figcaption will be implemented
15:20:24 <MikeSmith> ... if it's implemented as the accessible title for the image, then it's going to be a long string
15:20:42 <MikeSmith> ... if it's implemented differently, then the UX will be differnt
15:21:15 <MikeSmith> Stevef: issue is, figure and figcaption are not exclusively about images, and a figure can have multiple images
15:21:36 <MikeSmith> Stevef: figure could also have, say, code in it, or a poem
15:21:51 <MikeSmith> ... so the role depends on what the content of the figure is
15:22:07 <MikeSmith> Stevef: wondering how implementors are going to see this
15:22:15 <MikeSmith> RRSAgent, make minutes
15:22:15 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2011/08/18-html-a11y-minutes.html MikeSmith
15:22:37 <Judy> q+ Cynthia
15:22:44 <Judy> q+ Judy
15:23:07 <JF> +Q
15:23:15 <MikeSmith> Stevef: also, figcaption is not a simple attribute, it's an element, it can have character formatting -- so stuffing that into an accessible name [may not be best]
15:23:18 <MikeSmith> q?
15:23:22 <richardschwerdtfe> q+
15:23:25 <Judy> q+ Rich
15:23:42 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: after Sep. 7, let's set up a meeting
15:23:59 <MikeSmith> ack Cynthia
15:24:55 <MikeSmith> Judy: Stevef, I'm interested in what you're saying, because in looking at various examples of figcaption, I notice that in certain kinds of publications, you get types of figure captions that are very different from simple phrases you see in a photo album or whatever
15:25:19 <MikeSmith> ... one of the things that got interesting was looking at some of the trends on publishing
15:25:30 <MikeSmith> ... where you have a sort-of two-tier caption
15:26:09 <MikeSmith> ... and it becomes complicated to figure out how to deal with those, and the current spec does not do that well yet
15:26:26 <MikeSmith> Judy: there is a key piece of conformance that's not covered in the spec yet
15:26:51 <MikeSmith> JF: we have been working from the assumption that figcaption could be a viable stand-in for the image
15:27:03 <MikeSmith> ack JF 
15:27:04 <Judy> Judy: and there also multiple instances of composite images in figure captions that need to be dealt with appropriately
15:27:05 <Judy> q+
15:27:25 <Stevef> q+ 
15:27:31 <MikeSmith> JF: I am almost at the point of why we are pursuing this, why we should not just say that figcaption is not an alternative, and move on
15:27:38 <MikeSmith> ack richardschwerdtfe 
15:27:45 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: it's just not an alt
15:27:49 <Judy> q+ to comment on the backwards compatibility question, and the replacement-or-not question
15:28:03 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: we are already providing mappings for these types of relationships
15:28:19 <MikeSmith> ack Rich
15:29:25 <MikeSmith> Judy: when I started first looking at the decision that had come in, I thought it was wrong, and I continue to be concerned that we have no assurance that screen-readers are going be able to handle this over a multi-year approach
15:29:44 <MikeSmith> Judy: Geoff Freed has also been questioning, wondering if we just made the wrong call on this
15:30:25 <Judy> q+ Cynthia
15:30:25 <richardschwerdtfe> q+
15:30:35 <Judy> ack j
15:30:35 <Zakim> Judy, you wanted to comment on the backwards compatibility question, and the replacement-or-not question
15:30:44 <MikeSmith> Judy: my take after looking at a lot of figure captions is that a lot of them are appropriately brief and appropriately relevant, but that there are number of cases out there that are not
15:30:51 <MikeSmith> ack Stevef 
15:31:39 <MikeSmith> Stevef: the content of the figure can be more than images -- e.g., a poem -- not that the figcaption content can be a poem or whatever
15:31:54 <MikeSmith> RRSAgent, make minutes
15:31:54 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2011/08/18-html-a11y-minutes.html MikeSmith
15:32:00 <JF> q+
15:32:12 <MikeSmith> Stevef: having a figcaption does not mean it's accessible
15:33:08 <MikeSmith> JF: for case of figcaptions in scientific journals, obviously if you have a large piece of text with structure in it, you don't want that to be conveyed just as flat text
15:33:21 <richardschwerdtfe> q?
15:33:25 <MikeSmith> s/JF: /Stevef: /
15:33:42 <Judy> q+
15:34:29 <MikeSmith> Stevef: we need to make sure that we are providing the best experience for the user
15:35:07 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: I think we may be asking too much about HTML conformance -- there are some subtle judgements that make more sense have for WCAG testing
15:35:35 <MikeSmith> ... and we may be trying to put too much nuance and subtlety into HTML conformance
15:35:50 <MikeSmith> ... a lot of IDEs also now have a11y validation
15:36:03 <MikeSmith> ... we may want to think about separately it out
15:36:31 <MikeSmith> Stevef: we cannot just using HTML conformance be able to tell, unless we look at it
15:36:43 <MikeSmith> ack Cynthia
15:36:49 <MikeSmith> ack richardschwerdtfe 
15:37:11 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: yeah, we can put the requirement into WCAG checking
15:37:32 <MikeSmith> ... I don't think we want to look for a character limit.. AT is going to look at it, as an element
15:37:42 <MikeSmith> ... you can require a label or a title on it
15:37:54 <MikeSmith> ... you could have an implied role of image
15:38:04 <MikeSmith> ... you still have the structural elements in there
15:38:21 <MikeSmith> ... we have a similar role in ARIA that wraps a set of images
15:38:37 <MikeSmith> ... kind of like describing a set of powerpoint slides, as a set
15:39:01 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: I agree with Stevef that you don't want to remove the markup in there and just convert it into a string
15:39:22 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: I don't think it makes much sent to try to put a length limit on it
15:39:29 <MikeSmith> ack JF
15:39:32 <richardschwerdtfe> you have aria-label
15:39:41 <richardschwerdtfe> you don't need alt
15:39:53 <MikeSmith> JF: problem is, while I agree that we don't want to try to rely on HTML conformance to do WCAG conformance
15:40:27 <MikeSmith> ... but you can have an image with zero alt-text, bug a figcaption, then it's going to pass HTML conformance
15:40:31 <MikeSmith> q?
15:40:37 <MikeSmith> q+ Cynthia
15:40:47 <Judy> q+ Cynthia
15:40:50 <MikeSmith> Stevef: most AT ignore images without an alt
15:40:59 <MikeSmith> ... so they won't announce an image is there
15:41:03 <richardschwerdtfe> q+
15:41:29 <MikeSmith> JF: the thing is, I am prepared to go with the crowd (though that might not be the best way to say it)
15:41:51 <MikeSmith> ... but I am concerned that we are opening the door to poorer UX for this
15:41:55 <richardschwerdtfe> q?
15:41:59 <MikeSmith> ack Judy 
15:42:25 <MikeSmith> Judy: so the current spec says that missing alt is conforming in the face of figcaption, period.
15:42:48 <MikeSmith> Judy: maybe a minor adjustment would be throwing up a warning instead
15:43:09 <MikeSmith> ... and that is something that may make sense in balancing between HTML conformance and WCAG conformance
15:43:40 <MikeSmith> Judy: Cynthia, I hear what you are saying about that, and I am looking forward to the further discussions about that
15:44:28 <richardschwerdtfe> q?
15:44:36 <MikeSmith> Judy: the backwards-compatibility, if everyone says that could be convincingly addressed, and we knew what the UX should be when you get his with a barrage of text, then we can move ahead
15:44:56 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: I think we are making a mistake that we have made before, about letting AT off the hook
15:45:21 <Judy> Judy:...in terms of the backwards compatibility issue; and also also we need more info on the user experience.
15:45:31 <MikeSmith> ... just because there are AT that are not going to know what figcaption is, that doesn't make them right [for not supporting it]
15:45:44 <Judy> s/screen-readers are going be able to handle this over a multi-year approach/screen-readers are going to handle backwards compatibility over a multi-year transition/
15:46:21 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: could have WCAG require a warning like "browsers and AT combinations prior to 2012 might not handle this correctly"
15:46:38 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: we have one AT vendor that uses two different sets of APIs
15:47:11 <MikeSmith> ... we need to understand that if we are trying to support old-old-old ATs, we need to [be realistic about that]
15:47:12 <Judy> q+
15:47:37 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: regardless of what the HTML spec says, We can make requirements in WCAG
15:47:45 <MikeSmith> ... I don't think this is a big issue
15:48:07 <MikeSmith> ... relying on the HTML spec for a11y, well, we should not get hung up on that
15:48:17 <Stevef> q+
15:48:20 <JF> q+
15:48:35 <richardschwerdtfe> q+
15:48:37 <MikeSmith> Judy: richardschwerdtfe, I think we need to be careful about belittling the backward-compatibility issue
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15:49:06 <MikeSmith> ... this is not just about "old-old-old" ATs -- the backward-compat issue is with current AT that are in use now
15:49:19 <richardschwerdtfe> q?
15:49:33 <MikeSmith> Judy: I think it's still important to get the HTML spec to say the right thing
15:49:35 <Judy> ack c
15:49:36 <Judy> ack r
15:49:38 <Judy> ack j
15:49:40 <richardschwerdtfe> q+
15:49:50 <MikeSmith> ack Judy 
15:50:13 <Judy> q+ John
15:50:22 <MikeSmith> ack Stevef 
15:50:47 <Judy> agenda?
15:50:54 <MikeSmith> Stevef: the sorts of scenarios where figcaption would be  a standin for the alt is when the author does not or cannot provide an alt
15:51:06 <MikeSmith> ... it doesn't mean it's automatically accessible
15:51:22 <MikeSmith> ... we need to consider the case where it's _likely_ to be used
15:52:01 <MikeSmith> ... putting something that's not really a text alternative, but instead is a description, that is very bad UX
15:52:32 <richardschwerdtfe> q?
15:52:32 <MikeSmith> Stevef: using the right container for the right thing is what gives the better UX
15:52:41 <MikeSmith> ack John
15:53:17 <Judy> q+ Cynthia
15:53:17 <Judy> q?
15:53:19 <MikeSmith> JF: but you can run into a case where the user ends up getting a description of something that's out of the flow, that's been skipped over
15:54:43 <MikeSmith> Stevef: in this situation, the text alternative is not being provided in the first place
15:54:47 <Judy> q+
15:55:32 <MikeSmith> Stevef: this is why figcaption is a step forward, because once implemented, it can tell the user that it's an actual description
15:55:38 <Judy> q+ to say that she thinks that Steve might be thinking of a very specific case, but the current html alt-conformance approach on figcaption is a blanket case.
15:55:55 <JF> +1 to Judy
15:56:01 <MikeSmith> richardschwerdtfe: yeah, the AT can automatically know that it's a caption for this thing, and that's really powerful
15:56:20 <MikeSmith> ack richardschwerdtfe 
15:57:15 <MikeSmith> ack Cynthia
15:57:43 <MikeSmith> Cynthia: John, I think you are making the mistake of thinking that AT are not changeable, and letting them off the hook
15:57:48 <MikeSmith> q?
15:57:59 <MikeSmith> Judy: I support the idea of being able to guide AT
15:58:31 <MikeSmith> ... if we are trying to make sure that it's eventually good practice, we have the wherewithal to help shape that
15:59:21 <MikeSmith> Judy: Stevef, from your comments, it sounds like you are looking a very specific case, but that way the current HTML spec handles this is a blanket approach
16:01:01 <MikeSmith> RRSAgent, make minutes
16:01:01 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2011/08/18-html-a11y-minutes.html MikeSmith
16:01:16 <Judy> judy welcomes the discussion on this topic and invites people over to the text alternatives sub-group on monday for more -- thanks!
16:01:21 <MikeSmith> Stevef: If I am here, I'll do it (but I can't promise I'll do it)
16:01:37 <MikeSmith> Marco_Ranon also says he can if he's actually on
16:02:04 <MikeSmith> adjourned
16:02:43 <MikeSmith> RRSAgent, make minutes
16:02:43 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate http://www.w3.org/2011/08/18-html-a11y-minutes.html MikeSmith
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