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EOWG Minutes, September 1, 2000

Participants

1. Outreach Updates

  1. JB: Face-to-face meeting at Ottawa confirmed. Between 8 and 10 confirmations.
  2. WL : Putting up web sites from time to time, attempts to popularize web technologies from w3c. http://rdf.pair.com/ for latest on RDF. Will do the same for CCCP.
    JB: Daniel D had done a technical tour of the accessibility aspects of W3C technologies. Very minimalist in style. Would be interesting to do something brief and something rich and then create a tour off of Protocols and Formats group to discuss accessibility of W3C technologies.
  3. CL: Week of Sept 11, 15, giving two workshops for govt. web masters on WCAG. Addressing common look-and -feel policy.
  4. KA: Got a call from www.civic.com. Writing a article at a US govt level. Have asked them to contact Judy.
    JB: They got me. We usually get several press requests every week. Right now a lot on US Sec 508.
  5. HB: National Information Standards Org, Digital Talking Books requesting review fairly quickly. A review period of probably a month.
    JB: PF should be encouraged to review.
    WL: Will inform PF.
  6. KA: Netscape 6, preview. Went to Netscape user group to ask about the Tab and Enter function and found out that that feature is not built in.
  7. JB: I asked Ian if that aspect was covered in UA. He confirmed that it is covered under interpretions. I will mention it to AOL this week.
  8. HeB: Announcement from Henter Joyce-compatible with all the UA guidelines. Klaus sent message to Ian to review it.
    JB: It is nice that they are thinking about us, but the W3C requires more specificity in conformance statements.
  9. HeB: In Denmark, we are looking into forms on web sites. Looking at PDF forms, etc.
    JB: That is in the WCAG effort, especially in the Techniques modules. They are working with Adobe on those modules related to PDF. Who ever is working on that, do contact Wendy Chisholm.
  10. GL: Biggest roadblock with outreach is resistance. I have been speaking with Kynn Bartlett on pointers for convincing folks.
    JB: I actually would like to talk to you offline. I don't get that reaction a whole lot and many other trainers don't either. I am curious to know why you're getting that reaction.
    LL: I hear a lot of resistance too.
    GL: I teach an HTML course at a local college. A student working for a car company was putting together some documents online. I suggested that he include accessibility information. But he said, it is unlikely that blind people would be buying cars.
    JB: Important to get business case going. Also, if we look at the first several slides of online WAI overview, it provides information on the rationale for accessibility.
    LL: I have used those techniques, but I have heard software developers express reticence. They say that it is expensive, etc..
    JB: Looking forward to your contribution in developing generic business case.
  11. JB: A lot of discussion on digital divide in recent times. People with disabilities are also being talked about in this context. There is likely to be an event in Sept involving the White House and letters coming in from Universities and Corporations about their commitment to making mainstream technologies accessible to people with disabilities. Would EO like to endorse W3C as it sends letter/information to its member organizations about this issue.
    [Several questions and some discussion, followed by strong consensus.]

2. Redraft of WAI Home Page

JB: Three different versions to look at. 7, 8 and 9. Two are similar with tables in them. Some minor differences in the pages, in terms of how the information is organized or linked under H2. Tried to group feedback. Excellent feedback. I haven't gotten to some of the feedback yet, but will soon. Ian put together a draft of the page in CSS-P, but ran into serious bugs in some browsers. Discussed with some experts and concluded that we are close but not quite ready yet to have CCS-P in browers. At this point we can give two examples. A straightforward page and one with non-wrapped tables. The difference between 7&9 is the way the linking and organizing is done under H2 element. I got many comments to unlink bulleted items under H2. I guess it depends on whether you are a new user or not. Ended up stripping background color on nav bar.

HeB: I have a question about 7 & 9.Is it okay to have tables like that?

JB: Yes. I went thorough guidelines checkpoints carefully. The main thing is that the tables should be linearized easily. Using the unwrap function, the unwrap table link remains but is non-functional. It should be fixed.

Many folks say that the links don't work when using the unwrap function.

JB: That is a bug and will be fixed.

KA: If someone is going to unwrap that table, it means they want to look at the table. Shouldn't it be at the top?

JB: Actually, they just want to read the contents within being running into a screen reader conflict while reading the table. Ah! Figured out the problem. The unwrap table link is pointing to the wrong page. Will fix that.

WL: The quotation below the summary looks weird.

JB: The link is fixed.

HeB: Tim's quote requires horizontal scrolling.

WL: Summary is great.

JB: Need to update the table summary.

HeB: Why is the search function a link instead of on the page?

JB: Based on a lot of feedback.

WL: It parallels everything else. You do leap to another page for it.

JB: JAWs is able to unwrap tables more easily. Others aren't.

JB: Pros and cons of table and no table? Should be using table or non table?

WL: It should be 8, because you shouldn't single out resources to be linked to.

Helle: I agree with William. If I am a first time visitor, I like a short introduction and then go to the resources.

GL: I disagree. I believe that tables should be there. It stands out as a feature. Personally, when I came to this page, I was looking for what is listed in this 'feature box'. Later on, when I got what I wanted, I explored other things.

CL: I agree with Gretchen. I like the table paradigm and I like 7 better. I prefer the right-column paradigm. It is nice to illustrate that it can be done.

Ka: I agree. New visitors are going to be looking for resources. If this works in JAWs, I vote for 7.

JT: It seems that the nav bar is out of synch with the links.

JB: Yes. Assume that that would be fixed. What do you like then?

JT: The table version works fine. 9 has more links. Either way is fine. I think 7 and 9 are better than 8 because there doesn't seem to be as much in 8.

HB: The links are not in 8, but have a place for them.

JB: There seems to be heavy resistance to using them. I tried doing descriptive text within these as some requested, but couldn't pull it off. One of the things I am thinking about the multiple link concerns..doesn't use an internal nav bar help overcome that.

CL: Only the second time you visit the site.

JB: Problem with multiple links per line, inconsistent: word or phrase separated by commas. Earlier versions used commas in text of individual links, rewrote to avoid them.

JB: Separator: try version using link separator " | " in place of ", ".

SS: Like table format, for a number of reasons, as mentioned. And it illustrates more creative elements being used in an accessible way. It's easy to zero in on the resources. Need to fix the unwrap though.

MK: like Version 9, with search button.

Issue: news items, some dislike.

WL: Organizations need list breakup.

JB: Make fixes per this conversation today, and start WAI-IG comment on the contrast. WAI homepage is ageing and needs an update. Going to provide a table version as the primary version for comment, and an alternative, possibly with a tablin bug fixed that hangs on any broken links.

WL: Unwrap takes care of the need for the non-table version. The unwrap version didn't satisfy the "50 link" problem.

HB: Any page needs a date. The news items provide such.

KA: A portal for the State of Connecticut: agreed for no date on home page, to indicate stability.

WL: Next meeting next Friday.

JT: Jaws reads some punctuation as links.


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