The meeting began with a debrief/review of the recent F2F and the CSUN confernece itself. The EO work at the face to face meeting was focused on specific tasks, such as editing the WCAG-EM Overview and finalizing the Easy Checks. Wayne noted that particular focus seemed to work well and Shawn noted that for the next F2F scheduled in November at TPAC in China. CSUN themes that were noted included thse:
A review of current and upcoming work resulted in the promotion of Denis's work on Roles and Responsibilities to be promoted from "On Hold" status into "Contributing." Additionally, Shawn will consider how best to focus the group on Big Picture thinking about education and outreach for accessibility going forward. Consideration of how to promote accessibility in courses included reminders from Suzette and Wayne about university curriculum development processes and the work needed to incorporate accessibility into those efforts.
Review of the Easy Checks updates was appreciative of the work done at the F2F. It is still in draft form so suggestions and further revisions are welcome to the wiki or the EO list.
Shawn remined everyone that the WCAG-EM review was due soon. Our focus must be on the education and outreach aspects. If members have technical comments, please post those as indiviuals through the WCAG-EM comment channel. Three members agreed to review and post comments to ur wiki for discsuuion before submission of official EOWG comments. The meeting ended with a few minutes of informal discussion of the propsed professional association.
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/2013/02/26-eo-minutes
Shawn: We did not minute very much, we worked directly in the documents and made considerable edits to WCAG-EM Overview and Easy Checks. Shadi was pleased and we can continue to edit. Feel free to submit any suggestions you may have on the list or the comments wiki page.
... spent time on Easy Checks. Rewrote zoom and contrast/color sections, media, forms.
... Will review status of Easy checks later in this meeting.
... another item we spent time on was to engage more participation in WAI. We got a start on that but mostly focused on Easy Checks.
AnnaBelle: I thought the F2F was great
Denis: Did EasyChecks used to be Preliminary Evaluation?
Shawn: Yes, in the old Prelim Eval page there is now a pointer to our newer overview. While the new work is not yet in shape enough to entirely replace what is there, we did link to it. Full title is EasyChecks, a First Review of Web Accessibility.
Denis: Is it simply meant to be a quick review or will it be more extensive?
Shawn: The approach is stable, and yes, it is meant to be a limited first pass only. Review the current doc and you should get a good sense of what is the intention.
Wayne: The decision to focus and work specifically on particular tasks was a good one.
Shawn: Will keep that in mind, for next F2F. In November in China.
Denis: Had many discussions at the conference with people who thought the next step would be not to focus so much on Success Criteria. It seems it is not so effective a technique. Need a new way to think about, explain, and teach about accessibility.
<shawn> shawn points to <http://www.w3.org/WAI/int ro/pe ople-use-web/principles>
Denis: people thought it better to focus on the essence of the principles - Perceivable for example, rather than the SCs. It made me wonder if we have a communication breakdown within the community.
<shadi> shadi points to <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/chang elogs /cl-app-notes>
Denis: people don't read the SCs, maybe it is time to embrace a different angle, different approach?
Shawn: If you follow the links in IRC to find How People with Disabilities Use the Web, fourth sub bullet "Accessibility principles"
Denis: So as I thought about it, I tend to agree. We need to think about this in a different way, but not sure yet what that is.
Shawn: Look at the Accessibility Principles page. We have not promoted it since it is not finished. But this may be the first and primary page that we want to point people to. Skim through and see if it addresses the issues you are bringing up.
Denis: Yes, it is the idea of starting with the principles and relating the Guidelines to the principles.
... give people (particularly developers) more credit for how they may interpret and apply the principles.
Denis: If they think along the principles, they may be more likely to catch errors in their own work more easily, more efficiently.
Shadi: Thanks Denis, I had not thought about teaching from the principles. Interesting. Wanted you to also consider the resources that Bim is working on. The Application Notes are meant to be more applicable and focused on tasks and themes.
... they reference the SCs but do not start there. There is the intention to explain the concepts of the principles and how they are applied - learning by doing.
... provide examples and build it yourself experiences.
Vicki:I like the app notes approach
<dboudreau> the following pretty much sums up my position on this (as of today): http://www.deque .com/pragmatica11y-critical-thinking-acc-sexy-ble
Denis: We need to give developers more credit. While they have failed pretty much in accessibility so far, perhaps we have not given them the proper tools. Maybe give them more room in creativity of what they are doing. Teach them the foundations and allow them to explore how to fulfill.
Shawn: I propose that Denis and others examine the content of accessibility Principles.
... do we want more positioning about what the page is and how it relates to other material or is this a good approach? Denis can you take that as an action?
<scribe> ACTION: Denis to lead a review of Accessibility Principles [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/03/08 -eo-m inutes.html#action01]
<trackbot> Created ACTION-280 - Lead a review of Accessibility Principles [on Denis Boudreau - due 2013-03-15].
Denis: The Association of accessibility Professionals. Is that a discussion for this group?
Shawn: W3C has been very actively watching the development of this initiative. Let's see if we have time at the end to talk about it. We could spend a lot of time so let's save it to the end. Anything else?
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/#deliv
Shawn: Active projects are listed. Promotions, engaging people in WAI work, use of BAD in training, Application Notes.
... take a minute to skim and let's discuss
Denis: Maybe a way to tie in the clarifying WCAG Techniques to the previous discussion of accessibility principles
Shawn: Yes the WCAG-WG is about to publish a new doc
Denis: I also intend to continue working on Accessibility Responsibility Breakdown
Shawn: It is in the wiki. We have not felt it was ready to point to.
Denis: Yes people are referencing it already however. The sooner the better as people are looking for this kind of guidance.
Wayne: Which talks? I would like to follow up.
Denis: Will get back.
Shawn: How do we feel about the list of current work, are these the items we should be working on. Do we need to change the priorities?
Sharron: Based on this comment maybe we should move Roles Breakdown higher in the active work?
<dboudreau> http://www.w3.org/community/wai-engage/wiki/Accessibility_Responsibility_Breakdown</ p>
Denis: That is my intention
Shawn: Good we will move that up to contributing to.
... another question was how to use the BAD in training.
Sharron: If Denis heard a theme of Accessiiblity principles at CSUN, the one I heard was the need for training, training, training. It seems important to me that we prioritize the idea of integrating accessibility into fundamental technolgy training, the course people take to become computer scientists, engineers and even web masters. If there is a way to build stronger relationships with curriculum developers, the BAD is just a piece of that, but a useful one.
Shadi: have been hearing a lot about BAD, people asking to please build in media, Javascript. We defintely need more functionality in BAD and we continue to find things we are missing.
Sharron:I find myself wishing that energy was focused on the real need -- getting accessibility integrated into existing institutions and courses. Perhaps a program whereby graduate students work on it for university level curriculum
Shadi: not sure graduate students have sufficient knowledge
Sharron: Unless they are some of Wayne's. But maybe next year, we could incorporate it and maybe make it part of the AIR program.
<Suzette2> +1 to making it part of AIR great use of the community
<dboudreau> +1 to integrating BAD extensions to AIR :)
Wayne: A lot of topics have been raised. There is a pedagogue militia. The approach of going in lock step through the SCs is long overdue and must be revised.
<shawn> ACTION: Shawn bring bigger picture look at training and education to WAI & EOWG discussion [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/03/08 -eo-m inutes.html#action02]
<trackbot> Created ACTION-281 - Bring bigger picture look at training and education to WAI & EOWG discussion [on Shawn Henry - due 2013-03-15].
Wayne: Computer science and computer engineering curriculm development have interest groups that feed into the committee. We could quite happily count on professors who want to publish to stay employed. So we could go to existing professional associations IEEE and others to get committees formed to work on these problems.
... we are missing an opportunity to reach out to the ones who write international curricula.
... would take a lot of work but the rewards in numbers of people we would reach are big.
AnnaBelle: For those of us who are self-trained, people often go to Linda.com and I have examined what they have. They have only two things, one from 2007 that refers to WCAG1. The other is SEO and accessibility and my review of it led me to think that some is flat wrong. How can we have impact in those popular places?
Suzette: Here in the UK we have had discussion with the British Computer Society, instrumental in developing university curricula
... have had discussion but seems to still be in the place where more of a push is needed. It is vital for this topic to be integrated, to have the textbook support, instructor support. Often teachers are reluctant. They are unfamiliar and have excuses like "don't do front end" and more excuses than I can count.
<dboudreau> Brainbench: http:// www.brainbench.com/xml/bb/common/testcenter/taketest.xml?testId=488
Denis: To follow up about Linda.com comment, they mentioned that people go as well to Brainbench. I remembered and went back to see and yes, they still reference WCAG1 and it is terribly outdated. If this is what people use to self-educate, it is a big problem.
Shawn: there has been much in Europe about accessibility integration. Is there a master list of what IS being done or is that something we should create?
Suzette: There was not a lot we found that is named as accessibility. Some things we called "hidden gems" because some instructors would include accessibility morsels. That is six years old or so.
Wayne: IBM tried to start a list like that. Don't know how far they got with it or what happened to it. Much like Suzette's hidden gems.
Shawn: Could use WAI-Engage to begin to collect those?
AnnaBelle: Yes I think that would be great.
<Bim> +1
Shawn: It sounds like training and education may be the top theme for us to focus on.
<dboudreau> +1
<Wayne> +1
+1
<AnnaBelle> +1
<Vicki> +1
scribe: we will need a fairly focused discussion on that or if we want to hold a separate meeting to simply discuss the issues of education - it is a big topic.
... to look at Big Picture issues and develop actions related to that
Wayne: If we plan it well, we could get started at a Friday telcon
Shawn: So rather than focus on BAD, we may want to have the Bigger Picture of accessibility education discussion first.
... other comments about current work, bigger themes?
Wayne: there are certain things that we have right at the point of release that are definitely pieces of training. We DO want to get those out without waiting for Big Picture discussions.
... like the first set of documents, Easy Checks, Using BAD etc. Those would be useful if they were out there to combat the outdated and wrong information that is also currently out there.
Shadi: That's one of the design goals of AppNotes too.
Shawn: We do have a lot of stuff, but if I am a trainer, educator, the useful information is still hard to find and use.
<Suzette2> EU Design for All in eInclusion initial report on study of where courses running that included elements of design for all. Results of questionaire in D6.1 and case studies in D6.2 at http://www.dfaei.org/deliverables.html< /p>
Shadi: We do want people to have their own web sites, tool recommendations, and such. It is not expected to all be on the W3C web site. But to elevate the quality and the alignment with best practice, we need to step up. So an example is that we did a survey of what people have out there about how to build accessible forms. As AnnaBelle noted, some was just wrong. AppNotes is meant to combat that.
AnnaBelle: I get lost in WAI docs sometimes. We could draw a map by role or whatever to show how the documentation fits together and create useful pathways though the WAI resources.
Shawn: I can point you to a list that might get you started.
<Suzette2> Design for all curriculum including module in web accessibility is at http://www.dfaei.org/curricula.html. This is more the 'silo' approach and supports achieving recognised qualifications but actually would prefer to see integration in main stream
Wayne: A map such as the one AnnaBelle suggests would be helpful to us to help us make decisions, prioritize.
<scribe> ACTION: AnnaBelle to create flowchart/map of WAI documents, what they are, how to use [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/03/08 -eo-m inutes.html#action03]
<shawn> http://www.w3.org /WAI/EO/wiki/Promoting_Accessibility_in_Courses
Shawn: We started a while ago considering how we might do some of these things we have been discussing.
... we have lots of rough notes, want to remind the group that this is here. We can review and decide how we might use this preliminary work.
... comments?
<shawn> draft wai page: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/eval/c hecks
<shawn> new wiki page: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Easy_Check s
Sharron: Basically, at the informal usability testing, I found that talking to K-12 school based procurement and teaching staff that they were very excitied at the prospect of a resource like this. There got to be more critical remarks as I tested it with more sophisticated users who would quibble at definitions and remark on things that were omitted. Once they understood that it was not meant to be a comprehensive evaluation, but just what it says it is - a first, easy check, they calmed down.
Shawn: At the first session Wednesday morning, when we mentioned the Easy Checks, people flashed out pens to write it down immediately.
Sharron: confusion as expected about mulitmedia - is it synchronised, then also questions about the things we decided were out of scope
Shawn: If there are any specific points that we should consider? Put them in the wiki.
AnnaBelle: I used myself as a usability test. we are in the middle of a redesign in which the tools make accessiblity challenging.
... I found the process to be really great. I have some specific feedback I can give now or on the wiki.
... for example, check contrast with any browser. In fact it is any Windows browser
Shawn: Let's go through and review. We have a new wiki page, the others have been archived. The new page should address all comments except those that have not yet been considered.
<shawn> subtopic: Zoom section
<shawn> http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/e val/c hecks#zoom
<shawn> Some people need to enlarge web content in order to read it. Some need to change other aspects of text display: font, space between lines, and more.
<Wayne> When a browser supports zoom-text-only, 200% text enlargement should not disrupt the page.
Wayne: this is needed because it is not interpreted correctly. So we need to make this distinction.
Shawn: We talked about de-emphasizing 200%
Denis: I have been running this particular test with those I work with. I am hearing that it should only work with full page zoom, which I think is wrong. I totally agree with Wayne.
... I would like to have something written in our documents that indicate that we must test with text only.
Wayne: Yes the point is that in the browsers that support it, it must not disrupt the page.
<dboudreau> NoSquint https://addons.mozilla.or g/en- us/firefox/addon/nosquint/
Wayne: it can be just a short note at the bottom.
<scribe> ACTION: Shawn to integrate text only zoom into the zoom section. [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/03/08 -eo-m inutes.html#action04]
<trackbot> Created ACTION-282 - Integrate text only zoom into the zoom section. [on Shawn Henry - due 2013-03-15].
<shawn> Sharron: one of the reasons we stepped back from 200% is this is an Easy Check and it added complication to say how they know they are at 200%
Denis: It is not that difficult, we should be able to show with screen shots, etc and keep it simple.
Wayne: I can do my experiment with style sheets and provide the results so we can include it.
<scribe> ACTION: Wayne to compute how many CTL + are needed to get to 200% [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2013/03/08 -eo-m inutes.html#action08]
<trackbot> Created ACTION-283 - Compute how many CTL + are needed to get to 200% [on Wayne Dick - due 2013-03-15].
Denis: That is without the NoSquint extension. Those considerations can change the number of CTL+ will be needed to get to 200%
Shawn: Unless you have the extension, the default is to say that if it will break, that will happen at four/five times. So we need to keep in mind to make it simple.
Denis: Then use five instead of four and don't mention the extension.
<shawn> Some people need to enlarge web content in order to read it. Some need to change other aspects of text display: font, space between lines, and more.
Wayne: This is the only one that applies to people with low vision, it is important.
Bim: When we were faced with question of what does 200% mean? We asked the FF people and learned that it depends on the version etc.
... they told us what the iteration phases were. At that time, I beleive it was six, so there is going to be some variance.
Shawn: OK anything more about zoom? Those are the only open issues in the wiki. Some items are ready for thorough review. The Next Steps section has been revised, ready for comment.
... Numbers 1-6 ready for thorough review, Next Steps for comment.
... there are a few @@ designations, where we need more information. If you have contributions, please add to wiki, I will copy over to the page.
<shawn> Editor's draft: http://www.w3.org/WAI /ER/c onformance/ED-methodology-20130208
<shawn> wiki with our comments: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/WCAG -EM_r eview>
Shawn: Here is editor's draft and wiki page where we have begun to comment.
... shall we start a new page for this round of comments?
<Wayne> +1
<dboudreau> i'd like to but my plate's already full
Shawn: the new draft is out. Comments are due in two weeks. We are focused on the EO perspective. if you have comments on technical aspects, send those through the comments channels.
... who will review?
Sharron: yes, I will
Shawn: Add to the new wiki page comments to clarify scope, the relationship to other documents, anything that is confusing.
Wayne; What about the list of users that was discussed at the F2F?
Shawn: Yes, tersification worked well for the Overview. We can bring some of that to this.
... need to communicate our concerns about that long list of users, you may recall that the group thought we needed clarification of just who it is for.
Wayne: Would we like our comments together related to each section?
Shawn: Put at the top of the wiki page and I will edit.
... closing comments on any of this?