Independent User Interface (Indie UI) Working Group

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Announcements
Meetings
Current Work
Publications
About the Indie UI WG

The IndieUI Working Group has closed.

The IndieUI Working Group is no longer chartered to operate. The scope of its work are expected to be taken up in several other Working Groups:

Web Platform may develop device-abstracted events similar in scope to IndieUI: Events;
CSS may express some of the context properties from IndieUI: User Context as Media Queries;
ARIA may build a module of additional context properties from IndieUI: User Context.

Resources from the IndieUI remain available to support long-term institutional memory, but this information is of historical value only.

See the IndieUI Overview for a short introduction.

Work

The Indie UI WG worked on the following specifications:

Indie UI: Events 1.0, an abstraction between physical, device-specific user interaction events and inferred user intent such as scrolling or changing values. This provides an intermediate layer between device- and modality-specific user interaction events, and the basic user interface functionality used by web applications. IndieUI: Events focuses on granular user interface interactions such as scrolling the view, canceling an action, changing the value of a user input widget, selecting a range, placing focus on an object, etc. Implementing platforms will combine modality-specific user input, user idiosyncratic heuristics to determine the specific corresponding Indie UI event, and send that to the web application in addition to the modality-specific input such as mouse or keyboard events, should applications wish to process it.
Indie UI: User Context 1.0, a set of properties and methods related to the environmental context of a specific user, and a vehicle to access them to facilitate a Web application's ability to adapt to the user's needs. This is meant to provide information about whether a user is using a screen reader, screen magnifier, or other Assistive Technology, and to expose relevant user settings, allowing optimal adaptation of the Web application's user interface. This has important privacy implications because the information exposed may imply facts about the user's disability, which can be socially or legally problematic if misused. These issues are important to resolve and the group will consult with the Privacy Interest Group and Web Application Security Working Group to help ensure these issues are fully addressed.

Publications

The Indie UI WG periodically published formal drafts of its specifications to the W3C Technical Reports page.

The following formal publications are available from the Indie UI WG:

About the Indie UI WG

Charter

The charter of the working group outlined the goals, work methods, and requirements for participation. This activity was conducted by the W3C as part of its Web Accessibility Initiative.

Mailing Lists

The public-indie-ui list was for technical and administrative discussion of current work.
The public-indie-ui-members list was for members just of the IndieUI Working Group and does not include all members of the Independent User Interface Task Force.
The public-indie-ui-comments list was used to receive comments from the public and archive group responses.

Infrastructure

The Indie UI WG used the following tools to facilitate its work:

The wiki is publicly readable and can be edited by members;
Issues and actions on members are recorded in the publicly readable Tracker;
Formal public comments and responses were tracked in the comment tracker (a specific tracker will be selected within the next few months);
Web-based surveys (WBS) were used to collect feedback and test consensus;

Patent Disclosures

W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent.

Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net> - Chair
Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org> - Staff Contact

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