Device Independent Authoring
Is it realistic?

Dave Raggett, W3C/HP

W3C Workshop, Bristol, 3rd October 2000

Email: dsr@w3.org

W3C Activity Lead for Voice Browsers, XHTML and XForms

---

A Whirl Wind of Change

• 1989 – CERN WWW Project Proposal

• 1993 Mosaic gets off the ground

• 1994 Netscape blasts into action

• 1995 Java; Bill Gates gets the message

• Late 90’s sees Dot Com Frenzy

• TV and Mobile join the fray

• Voice Interaction is white hot …

Platforms and Capabilities

• In the beginning, there was Unix, X11 and VT100 terminals

• Windows (and Macs) take over

• Digital Television

• WAP and iMode

• The mighty Palm

• The plain old telephone

Squeezing the Web into a mobile

Transcoding = Guess and Pray

• Creating mobile services by extracting information from existing web pages

• Amounts to an expert system

• The problem is you need to guess the author’s intent

• Brittle – it fails if pages change unexpectedly

• The content owner needs to be involved

Each Platform Merits a Different Approach

• Desktops great for imagery, animation and lots of content, emphasis on browsing

• Television – lower resolution and emphasis on entertainment and shorter attention span

• Cell Phones – task centric, very focused, with emphasis on mobility

• The Future is Multi-Modal!

Accessible to All

• Many of us will suffer from one form or another of sensory impairment in our lifetimes

• We are all very busy, but laziness is not an option when it comes to accessibility!

• Preserving intention is the key to success

• It all boils down to text

Lowest Common Denominator

• Couldn’t we just use HTML?

• Pure form of single authoring is considered impractical except for the lowest common denominator, which fails to meet the content providers needs with respect to end-users.

• Not going to be solved by one language.

Divide and Conquer

A Myriad Collection of Skills

• Writers of pure content – e.g. journalists who send in their copy with no regard to layout/presentation

• Editors – who select and adjust content to set the overall tone

• Graphics designers – who create the look and feel

• Sound artists – who do the same for audio

• Marketing wizards – defenders of the brand

• Back room geeks – who weave the technical magic that makes it all work

Applications rather than Pages

• HTML focuses on Web pages

• Applications usually span multiple pages

• Cell phones need smaller pages (cards)

• Voice needs dialogs (speak, listen, act)

• Authors think in terms of applications

• Let’s think in terms of Plans & Goals, and ways to realize these effectively for each platform

• A vision for an authoring environment for delivery to multiple platforms!

Large Scale Publishing

• Big Web sites produce hundreds or thousands of pages daily, with extensive effort on customization/personalization

• A huge team of worker bees

• Lots of resources, and lots of experience

• Can afford to develop custom publishing solutions

Small Scale Publishing

• Vast numbers of people with little time, or knowledge about the intricacies of the Web

• One person has to do many jobs

• Wizards can substitute for lack of skills

• Mass-produced authoring systems can build on design patterns discovered by large scale publishers

Pieces of the Puzzle

• Our mantra – separating content from presentation

• CSS @media for tuning style to media

  • Mobile Profile

  • Printing

• XSLT and Scripts for transformations

• CC/PP for describing device capabilities

• XForms – separating UI from data

Requirements

• It should be easy as possible to write and maintain content for multiple modalities/devices.

• Authors must be able to control the presentation for specific modalities/devices. But this not required in all applications.

• It shouldn't be more work to use this solutions/tool than writing separate pages for each modality/device

Promising Solutions - Transforms

• Abstract models/device classes help to reduce the complexity in tailoring content.

• The semantics need to be present in the raw content in order for a transformational approach to be able to tailor the content to best suit particular modalities/device classes.

• Application model has to address state, interaction and transactions. Not all applications will use all of these.

Promising Solutions - Embedded

• One approach is to embed information about presentation and interaction into the content. Hints and graceful degradation models are used to tailor to particular modalities/devices.

• Constraint-based mechanisms can simplify the task of the author by pushing the burden back on the implementers.

It’s Your Turn Now!

• Break out sessions to brainstorm issues

• 30 minutes to collect ideas on the challenges and promising directions for device independent authoring

• First select your leader, who will also be responsible for reporting back to the plenary

• Summarize results on a transparency

• Rank according to urgency & long term significance