WAI PA WG Conference Call

Thursday, 11 February 1999 4:00 - 5:30 PM EST

Table of contents

  1. Agenda
  2. Participants
  3. Summary of action items
  4. Math and science
  5. Proposals from 8 Feb call
  6. Priority of checkpoints that addess cognitive disabilities
  7. Conformance

Agenda

  1. Math and science - Are the proposals sent on 8 Feb acceptable?
  2. Conformance - Are all of the P1s P1? P2s P2? Report from CG re: discussion of conformance.
  3. Are the rest of the summary items of open issues of the Techiques document sent to the list on 8 Feb accepted?
    1. ASCII art
    2. D-Link Reference for Browser Detection
    3. Long descriptions on OBJECT without "longdesc"
    4. Definitions for alt, title, and longdesc
    5. Definition of "rel" values on links
    6. Color design guidelines and examples
    7. "d-link" with frames
    8. Grouping and bypassing links
    9. CSS2 vs. frames
  4. Priority of checkpoints that address cognitive disabilities
  5. Device-dependent events
  6. The EMBED element
  7. The LAYER element
  8. CSS recommendations

Participants

  1. Check Letourneau
  2. Ian Jacobs (scribe for 2nd 1/2)
  3. Gregg Vanderheiden
  4. Jason White
  5. Charles McCathieNevile
  6. Wendy Chisholm
  7. Judy Brewer

Summary of action items

  1. Wendy will send proposed wording to the list for discussion of a note that would modify the list of images that require specific handling of alt-text (in A.1.1 - image maps, spacers, bullets, etc.).
  2. All of the proposals that stem from the 8Feb call were accepted. Wendy will make the appropriate changes.
  3. The editors will reopen the thread on the list re: the priority of B.3.1 (simple language).
  4. Wendy will add the conformance statement to the intro of the guidelines.

Math and Science

Discussion of the use of TEX in alt-text.

Jason believe it ought to be highlighted in the Guidelines document but covered in more details in Techniques.

Chuck and Wendy felt that no special mention ought to be made in the Guidelines and that the entire discussion ought to pushed to the Techniques document.

Wendy proposed a note that would modify the list of images that require specific handling of alt-text (in A.1.1 - image maps, spacers, bullets, etc.).

@@Wendy will send proposed wording to the list for discussion.

Proposals from 8 Feb call

All of these were accepted.

Priority of checkpoints that addess cognitive disabilities

There is still some disagreement about what priority B.3.1 ought to be assigned, but those who are leaning towards P2 rather than P1 seemed to feel that if the appropriate caveats were attached, P1 would be acceptable. One proposal that was supported was, "Use language that is as simple as possible and appropriate for the content of your site." However, there is still concern about how people would determine if they have satisfied this guideline. Therefore, we want to continue the discussion of this topic on the list.

Conformance

JB: Do we need a conformance statement? Yes.

JB: Ok then what? I think it can be very minimal.

  1. Separate Conformance section
  2. A document or *process* claims conformance by referring to the document in the following way:
    1. Title (*W3C* Web Content Accessibility Guidelines)
    2. Must cite correct version and (absolute) URL (must designate a version on the Web).
    3. Must state which priority levels it's claiming conformance to.

IJ: This doesn't mention the checkpoints. Need to say something about them.

IJ: Also need to define "priority level". Does "priority 3" mean 1 + 2 + 3? Or just 3?

GV: Conformance would be: "They must state Priority 1 OR Priority 1 and 2 OR Priority 1 and 2 and 3". In other words, you always have to do the Priority 1 checkpoints.

JW: Instead of trying to specify a priority level as conformance. People who claim to be in conformance should state what level they're in conformance with.

JB: If there can be agreement on the framework, then the WG can fill in the details. The WG should dictate prescriptively how other groups will use this. Just want to avoid groups misquoting or being ambiguous about their references.

IJ: Should people be allowed to say "Priority 1 conformant except for these checkpoints ..."

JB: Try to prevent those situations from arising.

CMN: Nothing prevents people from saying "We comply with 90% of the guidelines." But don't help them do it.

JW: Some checkpoints may refer to content types that don't apply to a site. Must define conformance in a way that lets them be conformant when some checkpoints don't apply.

GV: Thus, for video: "ALl video must have captions". If you don't have video, no problem.

JB: Try to prevent people from scrambling priority levels or otherwise misusing the document while claiming to conform to it

JW: "The conformance claim must be one of the following three phrases..."

Summary of conformance statement

Any document or process claiming conformance with this document must reference it as follows: "W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines"; must cite the document version identifier "WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19990115" and document URI "..." on W3C's Web site; and must indicate the checkpoint priority levels to which it claims conformance using one of the following three phrases:

  1. all priority one checkpoints, or
  2. all priority one and two checkpoints, or
  3. all priority one, two, and three checkpoints.

A conformance statement must take the following form: "This [document or process name] conforms to all priority level ['one'; or 'one and two'; or 'one, two and three'] checkpoints of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines" with document version identifier "WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19990210" located at "http://www.w3.org/WAI/gl/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-19990210."