The prime focus now is to get the wiki-based document in shape to replace the current, woefully out-of-date Preliminary Review document currently posted. Toward that end, the group reviewed the work in progress, currently called Easy Checks on the wiki. Discussion included a review of the criteria for inclusion and the document organization and flow as well as specific consideration of the Introduction, zoom and text enlarge, and page resize. Page resize was eliminated from inclusion, others are still in consideration, and everyone in the group is encouraged to consider current contributions, comment and be prepared for final review before a stable draft emerges for presentation to peers at the CSUN conference and EO face-to-face later this month.
Shawn: Sylvie's comments on the wiki
... indicate that it is available in many languages
... Vicki contacted me about tone, and suggested that it be more formal. I asked her to draft changes and will post by early next week. For discussion.
Anna Belle: I agree and wondered about the flow of the introduction.
scribe: I like writing that reads well and I noticed that the word "these" is used in nearly every sentence. It is more of a stylistic comment. Since I am so new the thought occured to me that clarity may be trumping everything and others may not feel the same as I do about the style.
Shawn: Will you check what Vicki posts and see if you still feel that way?
... often we save the copy edit comments to the end. But since we want a stable draft by CSUN this is good timing for that.
SylvieI'm not convinced about the easy use of the validator. Searching for "missing alt text" may be easy, but if you need to check if the alt text is appropriate, it may be easier to look at the result produced by a tool such as the FF toolbar, than looking at pages of code (in long web sites) and clicking on the link that leads to the image. The validator may be helpful for someone with good technical back ground, but not so easy for someone who has no technical knowledge and needs to quickly check the accessibility of a Web page.
Shawn: Sylvie added a comment about whether we would even want to check with validator
... both of what we suggest are visual checks. We want some way to check non visually as well.
Sylvie: If I do it myself I would use JAWS, the 'G' key to look for graphics and I will understand the results. If I am demonstrating for others, I use the toolbar so they can see the results.
Bim: I use the WAT toolbar, you can find it and demonstrate for others.
Shawn: OK, if we agree, we will have to add instructions for that toolbar.
... next question is what if you can't choose your browser and/or download a toolbar.
Sylvie: I tried to follow the steps as described and it was quite difficult to follow and actually locate where there was no alt text and to which image it is referencing. It is very difficult for those who do not read code. Cannot be cone in five minutes.
Shawn: So all that can be determined is that there is missing alt text - you cannot verify which image.
Sylvie: It is not a quick check.
Shawn: It will quickly let you know that images are missing alt text. Maybe not to identify which images.
... it is a backup that only gives very limited information.
... Look through and based on Suzette's alternative organizational structure, please focus on the Tips which are edited and see what you think of that. My question was whether we are getting too specific. Perhaps that is needed here, but may not be for all sections.
... also need to think about the flow and how we will make those changes as we get farther along.
... no comments on headings or page titles.
... I tired adding the techniques that we discussed last week, and there is an open action in the page titles to add an image. Actually there are several instances of placeholders for that.
<scribe> ACTION: Anna Belle to add image/screen grabs to placeholders in the current page.
<trackbot> Created ACTION-268 - Belle to add image/screen grabs to placeholders in the current page. [on Anna Belle Leiserson - due 2013-02-08].
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Eval_Analysis#Criteria_for_checks
Shawn: The criteria that we have discussed are found at this URL, is it still what we think are the best criteria for this task?
Suzette: Do we have a shared understanding of what consititutes common accessibility barriers? do developers understand what this is?
Shawn: We have not been approaching it from the developers point of view as much as the evaluator and the user POV
Suzette: We can't just pick on pictures and graphics first - those things that are 1 to 1, yes or no. Here is a problem and how to fix it.
Shawn: So this gets into the flow discussion, what order we put them in. If you scroll down you will see that flow is on the agenda to consider.
... we have alt text first but we may want to move it farther into the order since it is one of our most complex checks.
... another thing that I just added is the severity of the barrier.
Suzette: Yes and I think the fact of it being a frequently occuring error. So we need to consider this and tell a coherant story about why we chose these rather than being just a random series of checks.
Shawn: OK then let's do jump down to the flow discussion.
<shawn> SUB TOPIC: Flow <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Eval_Analysis#Flow>
Suzette: Discusses a reorganization and refers to notes in the wiki.
Shawn: If anyone has comments now, make them and we will have more discussion next week. Any comments to help us think about that in the meantime?
... thanks Suzette and we will discuss in more detail next week.
Suzette: Shall I post my document where I have done some of that with the current content?
Shawn: Please post at least in RTF
Suzette: I will try to put into the wiki.
Shawn: Please put it into a new page.
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Web_Accessibility_Preliminary_Evaluation#Check_zoom_and_text_enlarge
Shawn: Ian can you introduce this work?
... how do you feel about it meeting this criteria?
Ian: I think it it worth including in the Quick Checks. The tests are straight forward. There are some cross browser differences but if a tester uses the ones like FF that easily resize text, the tests are easy to do.
Shawn: Severity of the barriers, impact on accessibility, how common is it, easy to understand?
... severity of the barrier.
Ian: It depends on what happens, it can be a big problem.
Sharron: For some people the severity is high.
Ian: For everyone who does this/needs this, it is a severe need. But most people are less likely to do it/need it.
Shawn: How common is it that this is an issue?.
Ian: Common all the time and constantly frustrated.
Shawn: Easy to understand?
Sharron: Yes
Shawn: Commonly understood, commonly addressed, not much debate?
... for example don't some people say that 200% is too high a barrier?
Ian: Yes, but we can make that clearer in the discussion.
Sharron: It is not a difficult issue to understand. Because someone has a different opinion it should not be sufficient for us to eleiminate it.
Shawn: (playing devil's advocate) If the page contains something that is controversial people - including those who are advocating internally - will be launched into controversy.
Bim: I think the controversy around this is becasue of the different techniques and ways that it renders in various browsers.
... it was quite complicated. The CSS had to be in two parts and it was difficult.
... once zoom was introduced it is a different matter and quite a bit easier.
Ian: Zoom and text resize are needed, are important, and should be included in my opinion.
Anna Belle: The emphasis on the 200% stimies me, I don't know how to include that measurement.
Shawn: That gets into the practical matters. We are trying to provide guidance for any browser. This has keyboard shortcuts that work in most browsers. Given issues with 200%, do we want to emphasize more that it zooms at all.
... most pages that break, will break early. So maybe we focus on zoom and less on amount .
Ian: I can take a pass at that emphasis.
Shawn: Look at the ones that are fairly refined and try to model that format.
... can include the best browser for this particular test.
Ian: OK will take a look at that.
Shawn: Do we need to consider Wayne's comments as well?
Ian: My point to Wayne was that conformance was not the same as accessibility and we were focusing on accessibility.
Shawn: But we want to refer to the Success Criteria.
Ian: Although there is not that much reference in the SC's. Most browser do page zoom and text only zoom has to be set up.
Shawn: If a page fails, what do I point to as what it is failing?
Ian: You can point to the same criteria, even though it only mentions text resize.
... I would like feedback on zoom vs text resize. My opinion is that both should stay, but am open for discussion.
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Web_Accessibility_Preliminary_Evaluation#Check_page_resize
Ian: I din't post much on this, not as sure about this one.
... the problems you are looking for are similar but it is more difficult to test. Need a wider screen. Not sure having a small screen is enough of an accessibility issue. There are more reasons not to put it in.
... no reference to specific SC.
Shawn: So does anyone want to advocate for this one?
... then I propose that we not include page resize? any objections?
RESOLUTION: Not to include page resize as an Easy Check.
Shawn:Anything else for today?
Sharron: Follow Molly.com and retweet her W3c events
Shawn: I will update list of things to think about this week, please add to the wiki,
... will take a snapshot of existing page so feel free to edit.
... will plan a draft of this by CSUN and will also have a draft of WCAG-EM.
... Right now the Preliminary Review page is super super super out of date. If we are comfortable with it, we will replace the current PreLim Eval page with this work. Motivation!
... thanks all, have a great week end