W3C

- MINUTES -

Education and Outreach Working Group Teleconference

27 Jun 2014

Summary

Shawn opened the meeting with a report of a series of meetings she and Michael Cooper held to determine placement of the agreed wording of the caution statement to be used for Accessibility Techniques for specific technologies. The group agreed with both the final wording and the placement. Wayne next reported on his review of the WCAG-EM document and gave kudos all around. He and Bim agreed that the resource was greatly improved in terms of clarity, organizational structure and general readability. Next the group considered the progress made on the WAI Web Tutorials; several suggestions were made and left for editor's discretion. Finally, Kevin walked us through the plan for creating the new suite of documents for Planning and Implementing Web Accessibility. He shared the outline for the Implementation Plan and described the steps needed for completion, asking the group to weigh in on what they ultimately want the resources to look like. Once that is finalized, Kevin will develop milestones and timelines to get us there. After a brief overview, Kevin asked others to make comments on the Planning and Implementation feedback pages of the EO wiki. Shawn asked everyone to provide feedback on the ongoing projects, register for the Face to Face if possible, and adjourned the meeting.

Agenda

Attendees

Present
Shawn, Bim, Shadi, Sharron, Kevin, EricE, Helle, Andrew, Howard, wayne
Regrets
Paul, Anna_Belle, Helle, Andrew
Chair
Shawn
Scribe
, Sharron

Contents


WCAG Techniques for specific technologies

<shawn> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/EOWG_Meetings#27_June_2014_teleconference

<shawn> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/WCAG_Techniques_for_Specific_Technologies_-_Archived#Location_June_proposal

Shawn: We met with WCAG-WG and agreed on wording for this and there was discussion about where else that wording would go. Michael Cooper and I worked on it together and found a mutually satisfying solution and each of us is taking it to our groups. The wording will be where we looked at it but also a few other places. Review the proposal and see what you all think.
... A consideration we made was whether to put the note into the technology notes. My thought was that it was less likely to get lost at the top.

Andrew: Reviewed and thought the wording agreement was good

<Helle> yes, no problems here

Sharron: Looks to me that placement makes great good sense.

Andrew: So we are saying at the top of each individual technique?

Shawn: Yes, when you get to any stand-alone WCAG Techniques page, this note would be included in each one.

Sharron: +1

<Howard> +1

<Andrew> +1

<yatil> +1

<kevin> +1

<Bim1> +1

Shawn: Are there any concerns?

All: No, none

<Wayne> +1

WCAG-EM

Wayne: It is looking good, I am through to Part 8 and am up to sampling. It is a really good document. My comments should be taken as suggestions only. Quite honestly, this is so clear, they have been worked over so thoroughly, it is excellent. I think they took our suggestions and made it into a very good read.
... the jQuery and DoJo references might be too specific, should we consider using "widget libraries and polyfills" or something generic. Although that would be less clear.

Shawn: The most changes made were to the sampling and scoring, the later sections, is that right Shadi?

Shadi: Part 3 and 4 were changed in terms of merging sections. From the EO perspective, we tried very hard to incoprporate EO editorial style for clarity. So now it is the technical part we will focus on.

Wayne: I found no technical issues, but was really reviewing from the EO POV for clarity and editorial style.

Shadi: Bim has also been looking through it and has comments coming in. Mostly copyediting for typos etc.

Shawn: Our hope is that after this review it will be published as a final note, so if you want to comment, do it now.

Bim: It is an extremley good read. Very very good work - brilliant!

Shawn: If we want to promote this we should do a bit of planning.

Shadi: I am not familiar with that concept, will look it up in a dictionary.

Tutorials

Shawn: Last week, Eric listed several changes for us to look at, and some are still open. So if there are comments that we did not get to last week, wanted to open the floor for that discussion.

<shawn> https://w3c.github.io/wai-tutorials/

Shawn: Eric, walk through cover page?

Eric: Have made few changes and have some questions to help us finalize the cover page.

Shawn: Let's take a reading break and prepare for discussion

3rd sentence: "...and provide support website creators ...

<Andrew> suggest "...and provide support to website creators ..."

<Howard> I think audience is better

hawn: How do we feel about "reach the widest possible audience" Did we not discuss explicit mention of people with disabilities?

Helle: Couldn't we make a combination to include the reference to PWD and..."others"

Wayne: I like it to be open and I would like to make the point that it is not just an audience of people with disabilities but also the producers with disabilities.
... what we really want to do is present people with disabilities as advanced web users, administrators, systems managers, etc

<shadi> [[This collection of tutorials shows you how to create web content that is accessible to people with disabilities and improved user experience for all audiences.]]

Sharron: You're right that that point needs to be made, but maybe not in this sentence.

<Andrew> +1 to shadi

Shawn: Yes, in Authoring Tools, Overview pages etc but does it need to be in the Tutorials themselves?

Wayne: They have been designed to be so scrupulously accessible, it may be good to make that point.

Kevin: As we are talking about the audience, it may be worth pointing out.

Helle: I think it may be interesting but need to focus on that particular sentence. Something like "personal needs and preferences"

<yatil> +1 on Shadis concept

<Andrew> modify Shadi's suggestion to [[These tutorials shows you how to create web content that is accessible to people with disabilities and improve user experience for all audiences with specific needs and preference.]]

<Wayne> Perhaps append: including people with disabiities

Shawn: So we should separate these two things. The second sentence talks about the audience for the web sites that are created accessibly. So do we want to make an explicit mention of disability as well as the broader group of "personal needs and preferences?"

<shadi> [[andrew, it also improves UX for people without specific needs and preferences]]

<Helle> I like Andrew's suggestion

Shawn: then the second point raised by Wayne, is that web professionals with disabilities can use this resource. Does this apply to this resource in particular or is it true of all WAI resources?

Shadi: Yes it would be expected that anything published by WAI will meet our own standard. Not sure we need to call that out here in particular.
... would be a tangent. Could perhaps use it as a promotion, via blog post.

Wayne: The third sentence, "follow the accessibility principles..." what does that mean?

Shawn: That is a sentence that is up for review so it is not final.

Wayne: It is good to know that you can read a technical document and be safe, be able to use the resource as others do.

Shawn: Can we table that question until we work that out?
... Eric can you ask your question about that sentence.

<Andrew> like have a link to "How PWD ..." doc, but not sure this is the right place

Eric: Do we need that link to the Accessibility Principles since it seems to move people out of the tutorials very early on? It is an important resource but should we maybe link out from a later point in the narrative?

Shawn: Proposal: If someone lands here without much background, we do want them to get background? What about a section, given a clear heading that indicates resources for background information?

Andrew: I agree that it would be good to have a separate paragrpah that says before you jump in you may want background about How PWD Use the Web etc.

Shadi: It is important to provide resources for those who want it but I want to remind us that the whole purpose is that if you have NO background in accessibility, these development strategies will work. So I want to avoid making it a prerequisite.

Shawn: So if we are careful of the wording - here are specific techniques, but if you want the big picture, here are resources.

Shadi: It's not really even the BP, more an additional background.

Andrew:And we don't want to put anyone off by suggesting they need to read other stuff first

Shawn: So the approach is to have background info but as a separate paragrpah?

<Wayne> +1 at the end. As of now this looks like prerequisite.

<kevin> +1 for separate paragraph/section

<Helle> +1 too

Andrew: Yes and want to reiterate that we do not want to put people off by making it seem that it is a requirement.

Shadi: The link to WCAG is not encouraging you to go there, but is a reference of the standard.

Shawn: So you could reference it but not link until later

Shadi: Yes that was Eric's suggestion as well.

<Howard> I think I would get rid of "Welcome to the Web Accessibility Tutorials"

Shawn: OK, we have a general approach for that. Any other points?

Howard: Get rid of the "Welcome" sentence. People should know where they are, don't need that.

Shawn: We spoke about making it friendly and welcoming.

Shadi: I am wondering as well about the rationale.

Sharron: back then the page was pretty dead. we talked about making it more human, engaging, lively. To change the tone, which was flat and not encouraging to explore. Becasue this is such a great resource for a lot of people, wanted to be affirmative. The rationale was that at the time, the intro was flat and not inviting. Seems to have been addressed so is not as necessary it seems to me.

Helle: What will it look like in final?

Shawn: Just like it is now

Helle: The repetition of the word "tutorials" is off-putting

Kevin: There is nothing necessarily in the tutorials that introduces us to this is what is here, this is how it works, orientation.

Shadi: There is the following paragraph that tries to tell what you can expect, what technologies, etc

Andrew: I think Kevin has a point that we don't say what tutorials exist.

Shadi: Do we really want a list?
... A description of what will be delivered?

Kevin: Yes I think something more within the body of the text that connects a quick access point to understand what's going on and getting right into it.
... if I read this I won't know what is the Call to Action. This page needs to prompt next steps.

<Andrew> suggest linking 'accessible images' and 'tables' in the paragraph

Shadi: We have only two ready now so that would be easy but eventually there will be many. Do we really want to link all of them?

Shawn: Yes, what happens when there is 6, or when there is 30? I see your idea that it needs a call to action and maybe rather than expecting a link and sentence about each but it may be unscalable. Perhaps a direction to the navigation.

<Zakim> Andrew, you wanted to suggest we need to lead people clearly to he tutes on the landing page

Andrew: Maybe the paragraph "additional tutorials are planned..." we add a link to the navigation

Shawn: And maybe add an icon that links up there "Go explore..."

Helle: Is there going to be a menu on the left?

Shawn: As it is now.

<Andrew> maybe "Current tutorials are listed in the _menu_; additional tutorials are planned ...

Shadi: There is a menu but you don't see it when you scroll down

<shawn> [ i like "navigation" rather than "menu" ]

Helle: Maybe when you get more tutorials, we may have an accordian

Eric: Is it the most intuitive thing to link back to navigation? Is it descriptive, action prompting, both?
... we could use the same principle as in the Tutorial pages.

Shawn: We have similar navigational schemes in the Training Resources

Howard: I am not quite sure where I am when I land. Have we discussed having more on the Cover Page says intro or overview or something like that?

Shadi: I like Overview

Shawn: I agree it should say something
... Do we want to say that the opening sentence is not required as long as a welcoming tone is maintained?

<Andrew> +1 to drop the 'welcome' sentence - superfluous

Shadi: I agree but my tone is more formal and I want to drop the sentence.

<Helle> +1

<Howard> * glad to help

<shadi> [[HTML4 and HTML5, as well as CSS3, WAI-ARIA, MathML, and SVG]]

Eric: Wanted to ensure that the tone is right, that we are headed in right direction. Beneath the list, we mention both HTML4 and HTML5, do we need to keep HTML4? Mostly we reference HTML5 especially when element is deprecated?

<Andrew> or XHTML transitional

Howard: Still have the question since HTML5 is not yet a Recommendation, it still seems to be a question for many.

<Andrew> maybe HTML4/5

<shawn> [ using a variety of web technologies, including HTML4, HTML5, CSS3, WAI-ARIA, MathML, and SVG ]

<Andrew> [ using a variety of web technologies, including HTML4/5, CSS3, WAI-ARIA, MathML, and SVG ]

Shadi: My particular question was to address Eric's reference to only using HTML with no version. The issue is if we call out HTML5 to alert developers to the fact that these are modern techniques. But if we call out HTML5, we may then need to specifically reference 4 as well. So the question is whether this is good info for readers or too granular?

Kevin: Why would we worry about calling out one without the other?

<Andrew> same applies to CSS3 vs CSS2

Shawn: So as I understand it, we want to say HTML5 to let people know it is modern, we need HTML4 for the reasons you just said, so why is it a problem?

Shadi: Because it is clumsy

Shawn: Do we need to add the HTML5 logo?

Sharron: I don't understand the rationale for adding a logo?

<Andrew> why not add appropriate logos to the pages that use those technologies?

Shadi: Marketing, buzzwords

Shawn: one of the battles we have is that people think they already know how to do basic things. We want to be sure people understand that these tutorials really do cover complex, advanced topics

Eric: I think it would be useful eye candy

Andrew: I like the idea, quite recognizable

Shawn: How about we toss this to the editors for consideration.

Shadi: Not all the technologies that we list have logos
... we can consider where there are logos, we can use

Bim: As the tutorials are written in HTML5, can't it be used as a indicator?

Shadi: To close this discussion, if there are things that are missing from the Cover page, please drop a line we are trying to wrap.

<yatil> https://w3c.github.io/wai-tutorials/tables/tips/

Eric: Removed the FAQ from Tables Tutorial should it be removed from the navigation?

<shawn> +1 to *not* having "FAQ"

+1

<Andrew> +1 to remove

Howard: I lean toward keeping it for consistancy, "Tips" by itself seems vague. People recognize FAQ.

<yatil> https://w3c.github.io/wai-tutorials/images/tips/

<Andrew> +1 to to not having FAQs

Shadi: When we look back at Images Tutorial we are not sure that FAQs is appropriate there either.

<Wayne> +1

Shawn: Do you want us to discuss now or think about it and come back next week?

Shadi: Let's do it now.

<Wayne> How about contextual: Tips on Tables, Tips on Images...

Sharron: Helpful Tips

<Andrew> [tips and hints]

Shadi: People don't feel stuck on FAQs, we can find other wording?

<Howard> tips and hints works

<Wayne> Tips and Tricks

Shawn: I am looking at the Images page, the FAQs section is easier to skim. So think about formatting in a similar way to facilitate easy review

Howard: Under FAQ, I would indent the paragraph answer so the questions stand out and it is easier to navigate between them.

<yatil> https://w3c.github.io/wai-tutorials/images/decision-tree/##redundant

Shawn: The short answer is that it needs more clarity.
... is it possible to use the right hand column to explain it more .

Wayne: Is everyone aware that in the ARIA document they are suggesting for everyone to use aria-hidden rather than an empty alt attribute? Seems a bit contradictory.

Howard: I think that a different format may be needed here. Maybe a table where the question is in a separate column. Seems like you must really dig through to understand the question and find the appropriate decision.

Shawn: Did you add that to the survey?

Howard: No, I don't think I did

Eric: The only feedback I got was to possibly add graphic.

<shawn> wai-eo-editors@w3.org

Howard: It just occured to me

Shawn: Please submit to editor's list

<yatil> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Tutorials/Feedback/WCAG-2014-06-04

Shawn: Eric and could you put the response to WCAG-WG link for next week's meeting so we can review and approve that response?

Planning and Managing Accessibility

Shadi: Recall that at the F2F we wanted to provide guidance for project managers and implementation and content people. We looked at scenarios for different use cases. Kevin has made an outline for the Implementation Plan etc. We will do this in several stpes. We need to plan what we want the resources to look like.
... then we will develop milestones and timelines to get us there. Today we want to walk through the outline and get first impressions.

Kevin: The Implemetation Plan for Web Accessibility

<shawn> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Planning_and_Managing_Web_Accessibility/Outlines/Implementation_Plan_for_Web_Accessibility

<kevin> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Planning_and_Managing_Web_Accessibility/Outlines/Improving_the_Accessibility_of_Your_Website

Kevin: there is a lot of overlap in people's needs and expectations. I have tried to break it down into a series of steps which may become modules that will comprise a plan. It looks at organziational policy, project life cycle and such. I have tried to address the questions that I would expect to arise in each step. This one is the broadest topic of the three and I have tried to put in all that a PM may need to consider. There is overlap into organizational transformation that will be affected by how broad are the goals of the project - single site, all web properties, internal resources. Those decisions are important to the implementation
...there is quite a bit of overlap between implementing and improving. Would have an introduction that will be a pointer to the appropriate resource. In determining scope, there will be more certainty within Improving than in first time Implementation.
... content provided for prioritization

Shadi: What we are looking for, not for today but in the next week. Can people look at the outline, the categorization?

Kevin: Yes does the outline make sense, have we left anything out, is the direction going in the right way?

Shadi: And think in terms of organizations of different sizes and with different charters and/or missions. In terms of social engineering, changing the organizational culture to include accessibility, to what degree do we want to address that?

<Wayne> We want some organizational change ideas. We may want to identify when it is critical.

Kevin: Yes, how much should be focused solely on specific project management and how much on organizational change?

Shadi We must say something, the question is how much?

Shadi: For example if we recommend to include accessibility in the budget. That is straightforward. However, if no one thinks it is important, it won't get into the budget so persuasion will be needed. So how do you change attitudes so that accessibility is seen to be important enough to be in the budget

Kevin: Whether or not there is buy-in from upper management may not matter in all cases, if accessibility is rolled into requirements

Wayne: When you have a large org and several loosely related web sites, you must have guidance and commitment from the highest level in order to have a coherant accessibility position.

<Andrew> generic change management is pretty well covered elsewhere - suggest only minimal coverage or we get scope creep

Shadi: It is likely however that we don't want to get into how to organize your company, so the question is how to find a balance.

Shawn: We are meeting next week, even though some will not be available. Please be working on these outlines and the other is the WCAG feedback on tutorials. Will update agenda.

Summary of Action Items

[End of minutes]

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