CL: Chuck Letourneau (Note taker)
JB: Judy Brewer (Chair) (published
minutes)
WL: William Loughborough
AC: Alan Cantor
GF: Geoff Freed
HB: Harvey Bingham
DD: Daniel Dardailler
PB: Peter Bosher
MK: Marja-Riitta Koivunen
SS: Sheela Sethuraman
RN: Rob Neff
There was discussion of the difficulty in viewing and loading the main document under discussion. W3C apparently having server problems today.
HB: received a note about a WAI presentation at the Sony Center in San Francisco
but there was no supporting information - www.mfweb.com (session 53-D). Wendy
Chisholm will give the talk.
AC: Proposal to do a 45 minute presentation on the requirement to use Keyboard
alternatives at www8.
DD: At Prague, gave a talk at Internet World - Prague. Gave flyers and business
cards away. Will be in Brussels in a couple of weeks. In Italy at an opening
of a W3C office . In London at ANEC.org on the 29th of April doing a WAI/TIDE
presentation. ANEC is the unified voice of the European Consumer. May be
a private function.
JB: presented in Mexico at the University of the Americas at an internet
conference. May do presentations at their annual conference of computer science
departments from all over Mexico. May also include some web access in their
digital library initiative. Got a volunteer to do a Spanish and a Mexican
Spanish translation.
CL: the first draft translation in French will be available for review by
Tuesday.
WL: joined a HotDog mailing list and started an accessibility thread to build
accessible features into HotDog.
CL: also been in contact with Brooklyn North Software (makers of HTML Assistant
Pro) to discuss accessible features, but no results seen yet.
JB: has anyone been following the Mozilla list (Netscape open source working
group)?
All: no.
WL: also we should be starting access threads on any web-related list servers.
- document to review is at
<http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/WAI-access-profiles-19990409>
JB: given the lack of lead time for reviewing the document prior to the meeting,
we will walk through the document during the call; however any prior- or
post-meeting comments are always welcome.
CL: one general and two typos. Overuse of the word "functional" in the Abstract
and introductory material. No proposed solution, but it doesn't read well.
- basically, over the next several weeks we will be wrapping up a number
of things that have been in development. Today's piece should be one of the
last influxes of raw/new material for a while. Anyone working on other pieces
that have not yet made it to the finish line, please review what is needed
to complete these -- thanks.
Next conference call: April 16, 1999
WL: Wonders how this document might be used as a "legal" document. Thinks
there is a vast shortage of links in it - links to information that expand
things.
JB: Does not think this is to be used as a business case for doing accessibility.
William suggests that one of the use of this should be what does "inaccessible"
mean. Comments?
AC: Many of us have written things like this for our own professional needs.
He finds this version somewhat dense. Suggests a definition of disability,
followed by a description of the barriers faced by PWD then the functional
stuff.
JB: wants people to look at the accuracy of the examples for access barriers
or access solutions for PWD.
AC: gets tricky because you can't, a priori, assume that a particular assistive
technology or combination of ATs will be effective for a particular person.
JB: should the document answer the question "what does inaccessible mean
in relation to the web and does this document answer that question".
AC: thinks it should. And should illustrate the barriers with examples.
JB: Marja's scenarios will touch on some of this.
AC: will send an excerpt to the group from a chapter he wrote to help explain
disability to those who are not familiar with the concepts.
JB: William's other comment was about the lack of informational links. The
original contents of this document came from the Trace Center's "Unified
Guidelines". Doesn't like the fact that some of the disability groups is
based on legal or medical grounds. Any comments.
HB: thinks the current grouping is good, because it is reasonably familiar
to many professionals.
WL: while the medical slant is anathema to the disabled community, it shouldn't
be an issue here.
JB: what about having a reference section that contains the keywords and
might contain links to further resources -- concern is that this document
might be in various translations and we have no control over the destination
links (availability or quality).
SS: tedious to try to get into micro-detail.
CL: thinks that linking to a few resources in a static document might be
problematic - it might be better to indicate that resources are available
on the net and to encourage people to search if they want more information.
HB: mostly agrees with Chuck
JB: with a note format we are trying to produce a relatively stable document.
Comments on links are valid. Note could link to a resource page on site that
could be updated more frequently. But if a good selection of that type of
material is already available elsewhere then it might not be necessary. (e.g.
WebAble).
JB: what about the legal terms about 20/200 for legal blindness? CL: Valid
in Canada. PB: not used in the UK. DD: will ask his blind student… she
is not aware of the concept. MK: not heard about it in Finland - will look
into common terms for defining blindness.
AC: concept for "legal blindness" is culturally varied. Maybe we should just
not mention the threshold or administrative concerns. Maybe we shouldn't
be defining disabilities and concentrate on defining the barriers.
All: separate out the definitions and focus more on the barriers.
JB: comments on the overuse of the term "functional":
CL: functional requirement (FR) / functional limitation (FL) in the same
sentences are confusing.
Discussion: some felt that FR was fine, but FL was bad. Others felt
reverse was true.
HB: sees this as quite appropriate as a note for general users.
Summary: present minimal definitions, clean up overuse.
JB: is there any offensive or problematic terms in the document?
AC: looks ok to him.
MK: question about "impairments of intelligence" - what does that mean?
Discussion: terminology is a moving target. Do the best we can under
the current circumstances.
JB: asked about the Tools section. Any comments.
WL: commented about the statement of "developed to represent ASCII" is not
strictly true. Also comment of capitalisation of Braille (braille) is not
internationally agreed upon.
PB: clarified the Braille discussion a bit.
JB: not yet begun formatting the Scenario's yet.
WL: General comment - first scenario would work very well in the business
case, also in the Electronic curb-cut document. Basically, various scenarios
might be used in different ways.
JB: Wants volunteers to review barriers/tools. The current draft will be
cleaned up, but not changed.
William and Alan volunteered.
3) Discussion of status of other deliverables that are important as supporting
resources for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
4) Upcoming meetings.
Then, April 23, 1999