Summary of the ERT WG face-to-face, October 2001

We met with the Protocols and Formats Working Group (PFWG). Part of our discussion was Tuesday, the rest on Wednesday.

The future of the ERT WG

Present

(in person) Al Gilman, Charles McCathieNevile, Daniel Dardailler, Dave Pawson, Wendy Chisholm, Libby Miller, Sean B Palmer

(on the phone) William Loughborough

Discussion

WC has been discussing the future of the ERT WG with a variety of people, including the WAI domain team members. The consensus seems to be to move forward according to the following plan:

The concerns with this proposal are:

Suggestions for addressing these concerns

Those present then felt that it was appropriate to close the working group. The issue of morphing from a working group to an interest group will be discussed further. The primary focus of the upcoming months is to create documentation for EARL as well as implementations (proof of concepts). We will also continue to brainstorm about possible producers and consumers of EARL and how we might "sell" it to them.

EARL Use Cases

Present

(in person) Al Gilman, Charles McCathieNevile, Dave Pawson, Wendy Chisholm, Libby Miller, Sean B Palmer, Nick Kew

(on the phone) William Loughborough

Discussion

We brainstormed about a variety of use cases for EARL. Who are possible producers and consumers? What types of materials do we need to develop for them?

  1. Comparison of results from tools (developer)
  2. Looking for specific content that meets specific WCAG checkpoints (reader/consumer of Web material)
  3. Tech support for solving interoperability problems between tools. For example, a users configuration that requires an assistive technology. When trying to figure out where a problem occurs in the system, have to look at: assistive technology, operating system, other applications, etc. Users need a data package, that details version, settings, stream of commands. In other words, capture as much info as possible to send to tech support to give them the specifics of the problem. Consumer - help desk. Need - tech support interoperability support. Producer - user.
  4. 2nd opinion brokering

End-to-end process

Present

(in person) Al Gilman, Charles McCathieNevile, Dave Pawson, Wendy Chisholm, Libby Miller, Sean B Palmer, Nick Kew

(on the phone) William Loughborough

Discussion

Dave Pawson made the case that people need to see a complete end-to-end process and how EARL fits in. He drew a diagram with the following steps:

  1. Requirements capture
  2. Test specification
  3. Test
  4. Test result
  5. Collate results
  6. Analyze results (query)
  7. Present results

EARL is the method used to store the test results. It was also suggested that the test specification should also be machine-readable and WC took an action to investigate developments in this area.

The end-to-end process is possible (when using EARL) because the bits are not proprietary. This is the beauty.

Tools should be developed to show (proof-of-concept) how this works. It should also be described in prose. Both of these should help to sell the use of EARL to potential producers and consumers.

List of EARL tools to create

Present

(in person) Al Gilman, Charles McCathieNevile, Dave Pawson, Wendy Chisholm, Libby Miller, Sean B Palmer, Nick Kew

(on the phone) William Loughborough, Harvey Bingham, Katie Haritos-Shea

Discussion

We brainstormed about the various tools that could be created to produce or cosume EARL and who was interested in working on or helping come into being.

Other questions

Conclusions


$Date: 2001/10/08 21:50:24 $ Wendy Chisholm