Silver Task Force & Community Group -- 27 Jan 2023

<Zakim> Makoto, you wanted to report on Thomas (XR/VR a11y)

<Lauriat> Scribe+ Lauriat

<Lauriat> Makoto: I suggested he join our meeting as a guest at first, and he agreed. If we have specific topics, we can invite him to join.

<Lauriat> https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/task-forces/silver/wiki/Scribe_List

<scribe> scribe: Chuck

Jeanne: Would be good to discuss when we bring in experts.

<Rachael> +1 to noting insertion points for experts in the writing process

Tuesday AG WG call preview

Rachael: A couple of things to preview.
... This week, the agenda is sent out, we have Equity group report in first 30 minutes. We are going to try a new survey process.
... Chairs want to try something different.
... We have survey that goes through different levels of confidence on assertions. We refined.
... Chairs feel we can move this to developmental and experiment with what has been drafted.
... Last part is WCAG 2.2 issue. WCAG 3 in first hour, WCAG 2 in second hour.
... I will highlight a few things.

<Lauriat> Agenda email https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2023JanMar/0152.html

Rachael: If you see the survey on assertions, we are changing how we process the surveys. We are trying to make calls more effective.
... We are trying to break out substantive issues from editorial issues.
... You will see that division in our surveys. To support that (starting next week), we will send out surveys 2 weeks in advance.
... We have been scrambling to understand responses just prior to meetings, now we will close surveys a week before meeting to review.
... Chairs will focus on the answers in 3 business days prior to meeting, and we will try and make our calls more effective.
... We will then try this for a few weeks and then seek feedback from the group.
... An email will come out with next surveys and explanation, and we'll discuss on Tuesday.

<jspellman> +1

Shawn: Huge thanks to the chairs to trying out these ways to improve time management.

Writing process

<Lauriat> https://github.com/w3c/silver/wiki/Writing-Process

Shawn: Review writing process. Handing off to Jeanne.

Jeanne: A couple of weeks ago we discussed what we should do next.
... There were 3 ideas we had about that, and 2 of them were related to the writing process.
... One was that we continue the work we started last summer.
... We were working on how to do user needs, turn into outcomes then methods. Susan raised an issue that we also need to look at how we do advanced planning of how to bring in experts.
... And when we work on a topic we can do that outreach to people, think about how many times we want them while we are writing, and we also want their feedback after content is written.
... This is a bigger picture of where we should go.
... Also how we should organize the guidelines, which guidelines we should address and what order, bringing in new tech (xr).
... There's a lot of work to do that we could start organizing.
... The wiki page (link in minutes) this is some of the reference material. First one was a presentation on how to write guidelines for Silver.
... Current work is overview of WCAG 3 writing process by maturity levels. This is the work that AGWG approved last fall.
... Where we could look... let's review.

<Zakim> janina, you wanted to ask whether we have a sense of "do the hard stuff first?" or "do the easier stuff first?"

Janina: If we had any thoughts on approach, do the hard stuff first? Or do the easy stuff first? Any sense of that? Publishing more often would get more attention and satisfy that progress is being made, and encourage participation.

Shawn: My approach whenever looking at something like this is start off with the easiest to test the process w/o having to be concerned with hard work, and then do an easy and hard in parallel. That's my approach.

<Zakim> Lauriat, you wanted to respond with my thoughts

<janina> +1 to Shawn for the reasons he gave. I like testing the bounds of the process part. Important to learn early.

Jeanne: That's what we did with the first 5. We had a study that was done by Dave and Sarah, that did an analysis of the existing 2.0 criteria.
... They figured out which were easiest and hardest to learn and implement. We did a mix based on the results.
... We should discuss with chairs, what they want to do about it. I don't think we are ready to address yet.

Chuck like's Shawn's approach, but that's a personal opinion.

Jeanne: When we wrote original documents, we didn't have this writing process in mind.
... At the least we need to adopt the process to the current maturity level concept. These approaches need to be integrated.

<Lauriat> Overview of WCAG3 Writing Process by Maturity Levels doc https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iu3-vr2vMoDxr0YjwSEQsuOMjTzQxh1ODgRd57Ea-i8/edit

Jeanne: We have 5 levels, placeholder content... says what we will be working on. Exploratory is throwing in ideas, developing is we have some agreement but not everything is settled.
... ...through to Mature where we consider done.

<Lauriat> qv?

Jeanne: Any questions about the maturity levels?
... We break down user needs, test, methods, guidelines, any other section... placeholder content could be user needs. Exploratory could be reviewing research and docs.
... Developing we could be writing... This is an idea, needs some work, but at least breaks down the idea of what we need to do.
... These are the topics w/o having to write outcomes before we are ready. One of the things we worked on during the process is we want to start with user needs. But we need placeholders to construct an outline.
... It's easy for people from WCAG 2 by starting with the SC. It's tempting to jump right into the outcome, and we want to start with the user needs.
... We can craft a placeholder for the outcomes. This is the idea on how we could use this table, and we can update as needed.
... Going back to the previous work, we also have the guideline and how to templates, which we worked on last summer.

<Lauriat> Previous work https://github.com/w3c/silver/wiki/Writing-Process#user-content-Previous_Work

Jeanne: We also have the work that was done by the testing group, how to write testable WCAG 3 outcomes, and needs to be incorporated. Revised method template.
... That is ready to be plugged in, we need to determine how. Style guides.
... Those are the pieces we want to put together (and summarizes).
... Does it seem like a reasonable place to start to dive into this. I tend to jump straight into the details. Any thoughts?

Shawn: I wanted to ask which "this" is "that"... that was a lot.

Jeanne: "That" would be I think the end result that we want. I'm open to conversation about this. Is a revised guideline and how to template that incorporates all of these documents.
... It also includes all the work Susan suggested, and includes the planning regarding experts.

Shawn: that sounds good, as long as next thing is to start writing things. I don't want to revise and not use, and then re-re-revise.

<jspellman> +1 to using the template with a real example

<Lauriat> Chuck: The work seems daunting. As you went through that, it sounded more handle-able when segregated out into discrete parts.

Jeanne: Where do we start? I'm thinking that I would like to start with the chart of the maturity levels. Where we talk about the different pieces.

<Lauriat> Table of Content by Maturity Level https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iu3-vr2vMoDxr0YjwSEQsuOMjTzQxh1ODgRd57Ea-i8/edit#heading=h.rzl1gosh09i3

<janina> +1 to maturity levels. Would be nice to view from that perspective--don't know whether we can make our browsers do that?

Jeanne: I think we have a lot of detail we can start plugging into this chart. Whether or not it goes in the chart or sections below if we have more text that won't fit into a chart...
... Where do we want expert opinions? It's great for people to join wg and stay, but that may not be realistic. People come and go. When they are engaged, they are involved, but in a different phase they drop out.
... Instead of trying to keep them engaged all the time, strategically figure out times in process when they can be involved.

<Zakim> janina, you wanted to suggest developing a list of goto people by topic area?

Janina: Should we build a list of people who have expertise, and we can make arrangements with them on topic?
... Invite their review to see if we are on the right path.

Shawn: We put together a stakeholder map for this purpose. It's very old (maybe 6-7 years), and many of the folks are still around and interested.

<janina> +1 to the concept: "Stakeholder Map"

Shawn: I'm hesitant to send out for updates, but we have a starting point.
... We have an example of an expert opinion. It's a helpful light weight process for participation. When we worked on Silver to WCAG outline map (also a bit old)...
... We started in a room and got to a point where some of the low vision guidance, the group in the room did not have enough expertise in the room to help explain the guidance.
... Wayne was in the next room, and somebody got Wayne and we discussed and he explained the history and intention of the user needs and intentions.
... We were able to make much progress in a small amount of time.
... That kind of engagement is very helpful. We should do that. I think that kind of level of lightweight engagement is great. Keep it leightweight.
... Keep "as needed".

<Zakim> Lauriat, you wanted to note a case on expert opinions, and our rather ancient stakeholder map

<jspellman> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/128vPnCweXN9t4JBG7-AOeBhT-KquaWXcCsi3H-f8u94/preview

Jeanne: I found a link to the stakeholder map. It looks pretty good (aged well).
... Handy reference.
... Maybe we should publish as a note, but that's a separate topic for another forum.

Shawn: Sounds a bit like adding bureaucracy.

<janina> Reason to publish is internal to WAI

Jeanne: The reason to publish is to keep it more available for people to find. It may have been forgotten, and it's still really good.

Janina: I grabbed the link!

Jeanne: Looking at the writing process...
... Maybe we just need to make a note of where we want the experts to be. I don't think we need experts at "placeholder", but we do need when we start developing research for user needs.
... The experts we need are advocacy orgs and researches in specific needs.

<Lauriat> +1

<janina> +1 as an Evergreen Resource

<Rachael> +1

Shawn: Experts in writing each piece. When we get to the point of writing tests, having experts in writing tests would be good.

<Makoto> +1

<ToddL> late to the party as usual but +1

Jeanne: That also is in the...

<maryjom> +1

Jeanne: That will make our live so much easier. So few active people that know the testing side.

Shawn: by keeping things grouped like that, work will be far more approachable. We tried this before as well...
... One or more point people sheparding, and different experts join, but that was a while ago. Keeping light weight will encourage participation.

<janina> +1 to agile lightweight participation

Jeanne: If I'm not going in a direction, please say something. I'm looking at the user needs process and reviewing the various levels.
... In developing we need public feedback from outside experts. Even if people didn't want to participate in the group, we could get async feedback during development.

<Zakim> janina, you wanted to say it helps us know when we're done, too

Janina: I also like this, it will help us to know when we are getting close to complete. We are not going to cover everything we identify, there will be areas where we don't know what to do.
... Even when 80% is done, there may be 20% that we want to leave as such in the draft. Identify it and call it out saying we may come back to it.
... I like the trajectory. Seems to work well over a timeline.

Jeanne: Gives us an ability to Ljanina> quantify how much is done.
... It allows us to address more user needs...

Janina: If something happens 6 months later, it gives us a reason to re-open the process and do a rev.

Jeanne: Looking at outcomes.... anything else about user needs? Adding more details for each stage? Or bringing in more experts?

Shawn: The thing that helps the most is to build up examples.

Jeanne: Agreed.
... Next section, it makes sense from architectural but not development viewpoint, we have outcomes and tests. I think that needs to be switched.
... I think this is something we learned from WCAG 2.1, that we need to write the tests first. Then we need to know the details of ....
... For wiki and tests, and where we want to bring in experts, we need experts for test writing. I think in the developing stage that's a good time to reach out to tool developers.
... And other experts in the testing area. We can solidify the tests before we go too far with the outcomes.
... To have... it would be good to have feedback from outside test experts.

+1.... BILLION

Jeanne: This should be iteration with outcomes. Changing the outcome will change the test, we need to be aware of that inter-dependence.
... Who are experts at writing outcomes?

Chuck: Would that include advocacy groups?

Jeanne: Make sure we are addressing the need...

Shawn: It's essentially somebody who understand both user needs and user experience. And that could be plural (some bodIES)
... ... as well as user experience designer working with an advocacy group or rep. Some combination is needed for that.

Jeanne: I agree, we've learned from user need exercise where we did the matrix. This was Jake's idea.
... At the intersection there were needs we had not identified. Easy to go down a rabbit hole, we want to make sure we are balanced with what can be implemented.
... Does user experience also include implementation?

Shawn: user experience is an understanding of the technology such that one knows what is feasible, but not necessarily how to implement.
... Somebody who understands web technologies to know how to realize the outcome, but doesn't need to know how to write the code.
... Jake's spreadsheet reminded me of something. Functional and user needs for each of the SC's that we drafted. That's a good starting place. We explored the overall matrix, but it was not helpful to inform the work to do, though it helped some other areas.
... Expert in persona's and user experience can turn into real outcomes.

Jeanne: That sounds good. At some point we need some feedbac, a check from the people who build it. At the developing phase, or the refining phase?
... I'd like to find out about feasibility earlier.

Shawn: Agreed, but uncovering those gaps is also very important. We are trying to say what we are trying to do, how to do them, and identify the gaps that other technologies may be able to fill the gaps.

<janina> +1 to leaving gaps in the document -- per my earlier point on timeline/maturity and finishing

Jeanne: Excellent point!
... Our experts would be implementers at the browser, AT and author levels.

Janina: Author maybe content development?

Jeanne: Shawn, if you agree plz accept the change.

Shawn: We have 5 minutes left, we seem to have next steps. Update the template to reflect our thoughts on maturity, and with other work we've done, and then to start using the template.

<janina> Can we take Stakeholder Map to WAICC?

Jeanne: Let's have people give thought to what would be a guideline we would like to do next. I dont' wish to redo any we've presently done.

Rachael: We went through a fantastic exercise on pre-work to break out the guidelines, it might be good to review those results to pick a guideline.

Jeanne: Cool! Who's working on that?

Rachael: Me.

Jeanne: That will help narrow things down.
... This is a good stopping place.

<Lauriat> RRSAgent: make minutes

- DRAFT -

Silver Task Force & Community Group

27 Jan 2023

Attendees

Contents

Tuesday AG WG call preview

Writing process

Summary of Action Items

Summary of Resolutions

Scribe.perl diagnostic output