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EOWG 16 Feb 2007

Attendees

Present
Doyle, Jack, Liam_McGee, Shadi, Henny_Swan, Judy, Shawn, Alan, Harvey_Bingham, Andrew_Arch, Wayne_Dick, Justin, Sylvie_Duchateau, Helle_Bjarno, William_Loughborough
Regrets
none
Chair
Judy
Scribe
Jack (cleanup Helle)

Contents

Judy: Reviews agenda

Topic" Follow-up discussion on WCAG Basic/Web ABC/WCAG-on-the-Street

Follow-up discussion on WCAG Basic/Web ABC/WCAG-on-the-Street

Shawn: Reviews last week's discussion. Talks about the notes that were shared. This prompted comments about WCAG 2 being difficult, hard for developers, concerns by developers, etc.
... The focus of discussion turned to how to deal with some of these issues.

Wayne: The issue of whether WCAG 2.0 might be flawed in its readability.

Judy: Talks about conversation with chairs of other WG who are trying to work that issue. WAI staff are thinking of doing a copy-editing pass before the stabilization draft. She explains the details of what they are doing, but the bottom line is that they are working to address the readability issue.

Judy: Given the background, what are peopl's thoughts?

Wayne: have been thinking abt this since last week -- think that there is a mis-match between the intended audience and the actual audience..

Wayne: See wording in e-mail: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-eo/2007JanMar/0043.html

judy: ...the actual audience, the way they've written it, is evaluation tool devs and users -- it is written almost like a machine-testable language ...the intended audience though was the human implementor ---

judy: ...and so maybe what eowg needs to do is to write the human side of it

Andrew:... but appeared to be written for testing-tools developers

Liam: agree that it is written for engineers

Justin: agrees

Harvey: Do we need to apply the KISS principle? (keep it simple stupid)

Judy: We could write something to make it 'as humanly readable as possible'

shawn: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/

Shawn: Suggests possible approach. Gives the background. Talks about reviewing editor's copy. Recognized that some things apply to particular situations rather than generally. Talks about the Quick Reference. Can we make the wording of the guidelines and success criteria easier while maintaining technical accuracy> Initial impression is that we can.
... We can also perhaps add a few simple sentence to clarify some difficult concepts
... Summary - Simplify language, improve quick reference by hiding some things, add brief notes to clarify difficult concepts

<shawn> shawn reviews item a, b, c, c in the agenda

<Zakim> Liam, you wanted to ask about specificity

Shawn: has the benefit of not adding a new document and making the documents better

liam: raises concern that examples would cover the range of things

shawn: wants to 'turn off' things that do not apply to them, but not change the 2.0 guidelines

liam: concerned that people not exclude something that does apply to them

Liam: Just wanted to raise a caution about the specificity of what gets turned off... making sure that people don't think things don't apply to them because of an odd implementation.

Sylvie: how is that different than what we are doing with current guidelines?

Shawn: The first step would to help clarify guidelines first. However, in some cases we would need additional notes.

<Zakim> shadi, you wanted to dwell on views and user expectation

sylvie: clarifies that shawn is proposing to do all of these things

shadi: thinks shawn's approach is good
... may want to do it based on functional basis - in other words based on role

jack: shadi's point is great

liam: information architect, interface designer, interaction designer, content editor

wayne: disability resource provider

shadi: visual designer

Liam: animator

Liam: captioner

shadi: evaluation tool developer!!!

judy: strong reaction with several people in support of this
... what about organizations that do not have these specific role?

shadi: [to clarify, wasn't intending to go down the "roles" route as much but to cover some different user expectations]

<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to get in the record the idea of re-organizing info, e.g., by topic, by level...

helle: may want to move more to a database interface that people could select particular functions

shawn: re-organizing wcag 1.0 by topic. May want to reorganize information by topic or by level

<shawn> ACTION: shawn, for [formerly-known-as-Quick-Reference] consider offering option of re-organizing info, e.g., by topic, by level. also, view by role? [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/02/16-eo-minutes.html#action01]

Wayne: this sounds like it may the way to go and reflects his experience with sharing it with others

Liam: another role: web analytics

Judy: Cautions about using the word 'simplify' so that it is clear that we do not intend to change guidelines
... How would the approach Shawn suggested meet the goals?

Judy reads goals from Requirements and changelog for WCAG Basic

William: Depends

Helle: Not quite sure - needs to review things more close

Andrew: Shawn's suggested approach will address some goals but not others. He gives examples.

Helle: What is the relationship with Henny's work with Shawn's suggestion.

Shawn: Henny's document is overall how to transistion. There is a second document as well.

<Zakim> shadi, you wanted to raise that mom&pops may be secondary audience

Henny: Unless we address we the core issue of readability, there may be fragmentation.

Shadi: The primary audience may be other than 'mom and pop' operations

shawn: Comparison of WCAG 1.0 checkpoints to WCAG 2.0 ("checkpoint mapping") http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/appendixD.html

justin: would be interesting to get a group of 10 or 12 developers and ask them what they want. similia to a focus group

shadi: [I'm wondering who the primaray audience(s) is and if WCAG 2.0 document is addressing them adequately]

Liam: I really like justin's idea

<Zakim> Andrew, you wanted to also ask about role of application notes

andew: what are working group's intentions with application notes?

<Zakim> Liam, you wanted to ask why fragmentation is a problem

Judy: it depends on how it is being done. In some cases it is faithful and accurate to the original, but in others it changes the meaning

Andrew: hear hear

Wayne: agrees with Henny's comment that we may not be addressing the real problem. WCAG 2.0 is
... Other specifications are technical and then have explanations of what they mean. WCAG 2.0 has the technical part but is missing the explanation

judy: ...the rules in wcag 2.0 are expressed like formal notation, but they lack the explanation that we describe what all these things actually mean

Andrew: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/

shawn: What are your experiences with the WCAG 2.0 Quick Reference? What do you hear about others' experiences with the Quick Reference?

Henny: title does not work. It is more than a Quick Reference.
... more of a starter kit. Information is useful

Henny:: "Quick reference" undermines how useful it can be or rather doesn't explain what its use is and could be

Andrew: Moderately useful. Experience is within organization. Most experience is with people focusing on WCAG 1.0

sylvie: Does not know many people using the quick ref, so I can't give feedback on people's reactions.

William: Title is off putting

Doyle: It seems fairly good for what it is, somewhat comprehensive, formidable. Probably needs to be re-organized.

Judy: Agrees with Doyle's comment. It is formidiable. Needs to be more user-friendly.

Justin: Agrees.

judy: ...don't kick people into the deep end quite so much; need warm/fuzzy holding their hand through the process

Harvey: Agrees. Starts out assuming that people know more than they probably know to begin.

Judy: Let's revisit the title. What should the document be called for the reference we want to have?

Judy: wm: concordance

William: concordance

Doyle: smart reference guide

Doyle: Smart is good. Smart Reference Guide

William: how it works

Henny: implementation planner

Shadi: PPT

Justin: how to make your html & css site accessible
How to make your CSS and web site accessible

Henny: practical ....plannning

Henny: WCAG 2.0 implementation planner

Andrew: personalize portal, pick which bits you want to include or not

Henny: practical planning tool personalized planning tool

Liam: my wcag 1

Liam: my WCAG2

William: everything you alwyas wanted to know abt...
everything you always wanted to know about wcag 2

shawn: Shadi proposes written together myWCAG2 (wiki style)

Scheduling EO in coming months

Judy: Given some of the writing tasks needed in the next few months, it will have an impact on the teleconference meetings
... It could be that instead of meeting every Friday, we may need to meet 2 or 3 times a month.

William: Short focused meetings, may be the way to go.

Wayne: Prefers fewer but full length.

Liam: Keep people on the list. So, we keep people engaged and things moving forward.

Doyle: I agree

Judy: Shawn and I will come up with a schedule.

Shawn: Still have a weekly meeting, but deal with a topic if a document is not ready to discuss

Wayne: Perhaps a rotate chair?

Trends and Issues

Judy: Clarify about work on Section 508 that is going on. Gives background on Section 508
... Differentiates between Section 508, ADA, 228. There is also international involvement, Going through all of the technologies. About a third of way through to coming up with new recommendations.

Helle: yes very interested

Wayne: yes too

William: Any UN involvement?

Judy: Talks about the work there is going on there.
... Cluster some conference things together. Talk about international efforts.

Helle: Talks about some conferences she attended recently.

Judy: May have agenda for next week, especially if others present certain topics.

Henny: I've been talking to the UN

Summary of Action Items

[NEW] ACTION: shawn, for [formerly-known-as-Quick-Reference] consider offering option of re-organizing info, e.g., by topic, by level. also, view by role? [recorded in http://www.w3.org/2007/02/16-eo-minutes.html#action01]
 
[End of minutes]