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WAI UA Telecon for May 19th, 1999


Chair: Jon Gunderson
Date: Wednesday, May 19th
Time: 12:00 noon to 1:30 pm Eastern Standard Time
Call-in: W3C Tobin Bridge (+1) 617-252-7000


Agenda

Update on outstanding action items

Discusion and resolution of support of math

Discussion and resolution of navigation of element with associated events

Clean up some outstanding checkpoint issues from the issue list


Attendance


Completed Action Items

Unfinished Action Items


Minutes

/* 
   Brief discussion of difficulty of getting UA Guidelines
   to Recommendation 
*/

HB: This is where the rubber hits the road.

JG: People will buy into them when they start asking their tools for support.

Discusion and resolution of support of math

Issue #12: Recommend full implmentation of MathML .

JG: Three main conclusions:

  1. Provide access to math document tree (preferably MathML). Add this to current navigation techniques.
  2. Recommend MathML if user agent/plug-in handles math.
  3. Make math information available to assistive technologies (e.g., XML tree).

MR: The alternative to MathML is that authors create graphical images of math, which is problematic. Can't we encourage MathML more strongly?

IJ: Checkpoint that says "If you do math, use MathML" and motivate this instead of requiring authors to use images.

CW: What do we mean by "rendering" math?

IJ: I think that we mean prefer MathML as a markup language.

CW: What if a UA encounters a math document on the Web. Should we recommend that UAs be able to read this, or is more of the domain of plug-ins?

JG: In Web Content, this was discussed and conclusion was that math and science are part of a larger framework.

IJ: The larger framework is "Use W3C Recommendations where available." Maybe need a mirror checkpoint to "Implement applicable W3C Recommendations".

JG: Say this in the Techniques document?

IJ: I think this can be said in guideline themselves. E.g., may want to encourage support for deprecated features.

PROPOSAL: Review WCAG checkpoints. See if this group covers all of them or needs to mirror them. Checkpoint 11.1, if mirrored by UAGL, would cover MathML (which could be listed as an example).

RESOLVED: Bring WCAG checkpoints from guideline 11 into Guideline 7.1. In short, rework 7.1 based on that. Ensure that Math is part of that as an example. SMIL as well.

CW: Is a similar concern being taken to the AU WG?

JB: They will probably reference UAGL in this area.

Issue #13: Provide keyboard access to MathML similar to forms

JG: What's between navigation of math document tree and navigation of linear navigation of equation.

IJ: What about lower bound/upper bound of an integral?

JG: Linear is appropriate for simple equations. Need this for simple situations and naive users. Discussion last week about some middle ground. Maybe just talk about these two approaches in techniques; this might be sufficient for math in this document.

CW: You need to get through a math tree unambiguously. Linear is depth-first. Tree is a "node-announcing breadth-first search". Users should be able to shrink or expand subtrees. Need clues about what the children are (math nodes tend to be very sparse). You may need to know about the depth of subtrees in order to guess where to navigate.

IJ: I see the same techniques useful for, e.g., navigating a document structure such as headers.

CW: Math is a somewhat special case due to sparseness. We should be sure that the guidelines ensure that the tree structure is apparent. Yes, it fits under a checkpoint about navigating the document tree.

CONCLUSION: Just include math in current checkpoints.

Action CW: Write math technique proposal (with others if desired, e.g., Raman and Gardner).

Action MR: Review this proposal.

Issue #14: MathML objects should be included as part of the document tree

JG: Ensure that we mention XML in checkpoint about exposing tree.

IJ: Do we need to say anything specific about math if it's covered in sections on (1) Use W3C specs (2) Use the DOM?

HB: Need to mention entities/mapping to semantics. User agent issue to convert symbols into (notably spoken) rendering that is part of the math terminology.

IJ: To me, I hear "semantics" and I think "schemas."

JB: Do we need to say "support schemas"?

IJ: Political issue right now about convergence of RDF and XML.

CW: If the author has made the spoken rendering available (e.g., through a schema), then the user agent should make that information available to the user.

MK: What about the reading order?

JG: Is this a navigation issue? Or do we need to say something about "when markup is available for content substitution, make the content available".

IJ: Covered by 5.2.1. Perhaps ensure that namespaces included in examples.

CW: MathML provides separate content markup for use by computation engines. It's supposed to be included with the math and can be passed around, e.g., for evaluation of expressions.

JG: Put details in techniques doc.

Structural/Editorial changes to document (based on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines experience)

RESOLVED: Adopt single-digit numbering of guidelines as per WCAG. Push "structure" to introduction.

CW: I like single-digit number systems. They should agree across guidelines for consistency.

IJ: Will be difficult to track changes in WCAG. I think this WG should choose the most important and put them first.

RESOLVED: Move terms/definitions to a glossary at the end.


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