IndieUI

Allow for a wide range of interaction modes

IndieUI

Explanation and whom it helps:

Independent User Interface (IndieUI) is a W3C activity that defines mechanisms to the separate user actions available in a web application from the physical input device and gestures a user performs to invoke it. For example, in order to scroll a page, a user might use their finger on a touch screen, click a scroll bar with a mouse, use a scroll wheel, press Page Down on a keyboard, or say "scroll down" with a voice command. All those different user actions can be translated into a simple IndieUI scroll event. Thus IndieUI allows flexibility in how web applications are accessed and so they work in a wide range of contexts — different devices, different assistive technologies (AT) and different user needs. This allows users to interact in ways that they are most comfortable with and suite their context.

There are currently 2 specifications being managed by IndieUI: IndieUI: Events maps user input events to intended function and IndieUI: User Context defines a set of preferences that users can choose to expose to web applications for personalised access, and an API for user agents to access the preferences. Together these provide mechanism for user preferences and context-aware adjustment of user interfaces.

Note that the User Context work is closely aligned with the auto personalisation features of the GPII.