Meeting minutes
<shawn> zaki, who is on the phone?
Easy Checks
Brian: Easy Checks is meant to be quick checks on a website. First launched in 2017, and it needs to be updated.
… we need to redesign the page, but also look at priorities for Easy Checks. Currently 12 checks, and we are revisiting how many checks we want to target.
… we want to look at reviewing the landing page and one of the sample easy checks.
https://
<BrianE> https://
https://
<kevin> Use Cases
<shawn> History of Easy Checks -- History: Easy Checks - A First Review of Web Accessibility was first published as a draft in June 2013. It replaces Preliminary Review of Web Sites for Accessibility that was first published September 2005 and edited by Shadi Abou-Zahra. It was originally one section of Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility that was first published in October 2001 and edited by Judy
Brian: keep in mind the audience that we are targeting while we go through the activity today.
Kevin: existing Easy Checks use a variety of tools, plugins, or things to do the check. One of our goals is that you can conduct an Easy Check anywhere you are on the internet and no matter what you have access to.
<shawn> s/and edited by Judy //
Kevin: we want to use Bookmarklets, but what do we call them? We want something that can be used no matter where on the intenet you are. keep it simple
landing page: https://
We will look at the page, but some of the language is not set so not wordsmitting just yet. look at the level of the language, too simple, too complex?
Brian: anything you want to point out, we can capture.
… 10 minutes to review.
<shawn> s| s/and edited by Judy //|
Amanda: doesn't say that the headings should be descriptive of the content below.
Kevin: some things still missing - like what to look for. That is somewhere that we can add that.
Amanda: auto scrolling on hover is very distracting.
… would rather it be on input rather than on focus.
Shikha: the page looks very similar to the other W3C pages. could they be connected to the use cases? could we link them so someone could find all the checks that may work for them.
Kevin: when you say new, do you mean people new to accessibility?
Shikha: Yes, we should link the use cases with the easy checks that they may need for their journey. which pertain to the work they may be doing.
… i think its very clear, but if I was a user, it may not be, so focus on the user journey.
I think where we have "who is it for" put the use cases so that possibly we can filter on their job function and find the checks that are relevent to them.
Kevin: we came up with the idea that we want to tell people "this is a check that I need to do". but we want them to know who are the checks for and relevent for.
… not sure we will go down the route of filtering.
… would introduce more functionality complexity
… does it need anything to talk about who is it for? Are these descriptiors "who is it for, time, impact" are they useful
Shawn: the "who is the check relevent for", they don't match the use cases.
… it also may take someone longer the first time or depending on their level of knowledge, so the time, could be problematic.
<Amanda> +1 to Shawn's timing comments
Kevin: is it worth having something that starts to say "its not going to take you too long".
Amanda: I don't think having timing there would benefit anyone. They committed to doing it. if it takes to long once they are in it, they would leave.
Marcelo: this is for testing and checks? once something is done?
reposting for Marcelo - https://
Kevin: could be used by procurers to test if a product is accessible. Could be used by a student to learn
Marcelo: Is this dynamic or static content.
Kevin: the content woudln't be used in other places. We have a design patterns.
kakinney: We don't duplicate content, we just link to it from other pages.
Maud: Introduce this as a quick decision making process, lead with the positive things, not the "not an audit" but lead with the benefit.
… when I work with children, if you have the video, make sure its the real video.
Kevin: we could reuse the video that we had about the introduction video about the EasyChecks. We may reuse it. Do you think it would be useful?
Maud: Yes
<shawn> [ Shawn note to self for later -- newbies disracted by the wrapper. and if dropped into a check page, missing context ]
Amanda: thinking as a designer - going back to the heading page, "what is a heading" how it may be visual styled? Is it a heading but not marked up like one - that's something we look for often.
Kevin: is the content at the level you would expect? Is it pitching it at the right level considering who would be using it or who we would like to use it.
Brian: on the heading i noted, is the example of Games the best to use, people may not know what they are. you have heading levels, and indentation to cue the structure, but sometimes they don't look like that on the page. Maybe we can come up with one that is more universally understood.
Amanda: can we use the content on the page? as the example. Rather than make up new content?
Kevin: For example, the heading structure on this page is...
… we want it to go to at least level 3.
… yeah, think that would work.
Marcelo: have you considered the term semantic?
Kevin: no, we are trying to not get into technical words.
… its not a common enough term for the use cases that we have.
Marcelo: the way we educate people at different levels, they are learning some terms at different levels, and it may conflict.
<Zakim> Marcelo-Paiva, you wanted to ask if the group has considered adding the term "semantic heading structure"?
Kevin: it would introduce a complexity that we would need to explain. Which would take away from the simplicity of it.
Fred: What to look for section, they shouldn't be questions. they should be direct statements.
Kevin: Yes, we can set them up as assertions.
<shawn> [ Shawn notes that wording is in the previous version https://
Fred: not sure where this could go, but on the procurement use case. having a clear "best practice" section may be helpful.
… that is what a lot of people look for to get info for their works.
Kevin: the idea about this is doing the check, not building the heading. This is not the tutorials , that is linked from the bottom of the page.
kakinney: I don't like checklists because people tend to stay attached to it and not update themselves
Marcelo: so this isn't supposed to look like a check list?
Kevin: well if we make assertion statements, it may end up looking like a checkist.
Amanda: Maybe a summary page would be good for people to remember the checks as they go through. so they can keep that and remember what they should be doing when they create content.
… if they can print the initial page and they have that list.
Kevin: wonder if we can pull the intro and the "what to check for" section
Amanda: I use Easy Checks all the time for 101 training. I made a one pager of Easy Checks for people to be reminded of what the different checks are for.
Brian: going back to the sample heading structure, where we have the code - should we have that if people coming to this are not technical. Should we just mimic the bookmarklet and just put 1 or 2.
Kevin: I am open to that.
kakinney: but if you put the code, should the code be correct? do we have to close the tags?
Fred: should it reflect what the actual check does? So if its wrong, does it turn red? Or flag something as incorrect? Is there help guidance on that at all? What do the red numbers mean?
Kevin: in the part of "what to look for" we can put that if they skip a heading level or a level is missing.
Amanda: wondering if as part of the description soemthing to address that code has to be right - "what you see visually needs to match the code."
Kevin: flagging that lightly
Kevin: Did anyone follow the instructions? and try to add the check headings link to your bookmark toolbar and use it on another page?
<shawn> [[ Shawn note to self for later -- on first page, maybe indicate visual needed ... think already a GitHub issue ]]
<shawn> [[ overall accessibility of bookmark lets ]]
Taking our break.
https://
https://
kakinney: looking at the use cases - teaching and mentor section - should we have both mentor and mentee, and teacher and student
kakinney: they are very different perspectives than someone in a corporation and wonder if we should have that perspective
kevin: doesn't know how much value there would be at this point to adjust the use cases or add another
kakinney: not suggesting to add, but do we need the teacher when the student is the one using it
Marcelo: Thinking of the word document creator - the heading structure applies to that, so maybe think of the guidance from how they could take that away too.
Amanda: we want to make sure they have take aways, and have a stand alone resource, in case someone doesn't have someone to teach them. I usually teach people in a workshop, but that may not always happen.
Kevin: The hope is that we can write this in a way to give someone a link and let them go. Many of the use cases you have no one to help them through it.
kevin: looking back at the landing page and the brief points for each summary
… do we get rid of that
kakinney: I don't think we should get rid of it, but perhaps reframe it
kevin: we can do that for who it affects but if we try to list everyone out do we have a chance of missing people?
kakinney: the impact would be the most important
Shawn: the check itself has who it benefits. it won't fit succinctly on the first page. It would be interesting to look at that, but to any person, it could be a high impact in certain situations. May be too challenging to limit it.
Kevin: we all do that when we make an assessment - we need to prioritize in some way.
Amanda: that is why WCAG doesn't have any type of ranking. you can't prioritize someone over someone else.
Amanda: well we won't have too many will we?
Kevin: we have about 40ish now and that was based on a rough heuristic evaluation of how hard is it to explain to someone, and how hard is it to check?
… it won't be a long list of checks, we will chunk them out by function or subject. We also may start with a smaller list and then add more as we go.
… total number could be good as long as we can chunk out by some subject.
Amanda: if we can chunk them up, can we make more easy checks on a long road map? can we add other ones that could bridge gaps until WCAG 3?
Kevin: there are some that we can't check for - and there are some that are just part of a success criteria. the landing page wouldn't be one page.
Amanda: understanding Docs are missing something like Easy Checks. We have successes and failures, but nothing on how to do the easy check.
… as a job function you can make your own list of the checks that pertain to you.
Kevin: Quick Ref has those tags and maybe we can build out the support to have a resource that works for someone's needs.
… its good to add into the mix as possible prioritization for the future.
Brian: talking about ways of connecting these resources. links from Quick Ref to easy checks, to the SC.
Amanda: maybe its a mind-frame change/shift. Have to tell them who it's impacting but provide them info to do that. I make those connections for clients, but if WAI could make those connections, it would be great.
Marcelo-Paiva: in Teams we have practices, and one of them is accessibility checks, and its something handy that they need to do before they go into a meeting. they can reference easy checks during office hours. thinking about how Easy Checks might be used, would be good for people. Some context on how the tool might be used.
<Maud> Might be useful for researchers who have to compare many webpages
Kevin: coming back to the Overview page it seems like the who, time and impact won't be needed on the main page.
Shikha: rather than have the benefit in a paragraph, maybe we can make it as a list.
Shikha: I'm confused about what to expect from the paragraph. the screenshot of the heading structure makes it confusing. Put the list of people, to be more succinct.
Kevin: Its written as a narrative, of who it impacts and how.
Brian: instead of a list, maybe subheadings.
Kevin: we can explore a summary and subheadings too. to see how they both look.
… there is the potential though that we may end up talking about two disability groups
… the high-level idea is to pull out the list of people it would benefit more prominently at the top. My only concern is if we miss someone. the list makes it feel like a concrete definitive list.
Shikha: yeah, this is something we need to work out further.
BrianE: good to have a mockup and see what it looks like.
Amanda: wondering about bringing it back to consistency around language. especially if we ever link to understanding documents. Benefits and then there is a list. The intent is very story-driven. Whatever the cutoff for the understanding docs, we can use that for easy checks too.
… Intent/Benefits is more conversational. Who depends on headings - should that be benefits.
Kevin: Understanding Docs are a lot more information and that may be to much.
… we want it to be "who benefits" from this.
<Zakim> Marcelo-Paiva, you wanted to ask if there's an opportunity for progressive disclosure
Marcelo-Paiva: we use a progressive disclosure so that the page isn't so overwhelming all at once.
Kevin: its close to expand/collapse. We can certainly look at ways to make the page "shorter" with disclosure or expand collapse.
Marcels-Paiva: collapse all the headings so that they can decide if they want to look at the whole page.
<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to say UT "why" and to say "Why it's important" https://
Shawn: We do that on other pages on the WAI website.
Shawn: in usability testing in May - people were looking for WHY.
… in the what's new - we added why its important and that's being added to all of the understanding documents.
Amanda: I love that - its a succinct way to tell what to do and who its for.
Kevin: we can move the headings to say - what is this "thing" and "why is it important". We don't have a TOC in the "at a glance" section.
… we may have to work out a TOD
Maud: Quick summary of who benefits - added benefits and then link to other places or other initiatives.
<shawn> https://
Shawn: the box at the top, in some of them, may not be useful.
Len_B: I keep going back to the Use Cases. what do the personas need? If it's about doing the easy check - we should lead with the check and then tell them what is it and why its important. When I get the results, what do I do with it? How do I solve it, and why is it important to do that.
… I like the at a glance at the top. unfortunately, they just don't have time to process all this content before they get to the check itself.
Kevin: We did look at different ordering of the content. One of them was to push the check right from the start. The structure we have works the best to explain what it is. the who it benefits hooks them in to. k now why they are doing it and then they can do the check.
… things like linking to specific sections might be helpful (TOC)
<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to note that Len's like of the top part includes a link to a section, which is in the page contents of the rest of the site, but not this At a Glance
Kevin: rearranging the content may go against how people are digesting this information during the small UT that we did.
Len_B: understanding the person so we can figure out how to present this information to people. When we work with accessibility people vs. someone just in that startup - they need that intro copy.
Kevin: some of the training I have done, I start with what, why and what matters.
Shawn: we did have page contents at the top it would meet both needs.
<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to react to shawn
<Zakim> BrianE, you wanted to talk about at a glance
BrianE: the content that is at a glance, isn't even talking about the testing part. its talking about a couple of things, but not about the check. so maybe the TOC would be best.
Kevin: so I think wanting to dump At-a-glance is the direction we're going.
<shawn> +1 to Brian that at a glance is good for long pages, and not needed for short pages
Len_B: another option would be a TOC and one-liners are bullets in the sections. so you have a TOC and the objective of that section. Helps trainers understand what does that link do. Also to support other types of learners.
Kevin: hoping the headings are descriptive enough that we wouldn't need that sentence to explain them.
<shawn> [ shawn is curious to try Len's idea on the pages she's drafted :-]
Kevin: we have a lot about the main page, but we will have opportunities to look at them more later.
Amanda: the "not an audit" - not sure if its the red or the formatting, but its disconcerting.
Kevin: we don't have a design pattern that calls out something you really need to pay attention to.
… how do we ensure that that is sufficiently prominent
… open to ideas of how to present it.
Maud: it seems like more of a disclaimer
<shawn> Amanda "I feel shouted at"
Amanda: Disclaimer would be better than audit. Almost makes audit feel like an audit is a bad thing.
Kevin: I can change that
https://
Kevin: How are we grouping these checks? Within that question - when we do our card sort, we may find ones that don't fit or fit in both categories.
… there is an arbitrary aspect about it - we likely want to have at least 3 or 4 items in a group. if we only have one - is the group useless or the item useless.
Amanda: have we decided how we want to group them.
… like WCAG is grouped - not that we will use their headings.
Kevin: we have a github issue started that looks at that.
<Marcelo-Paiva> is there a link for the github discussion? I'd love to contribute if I may.
<Zakim> shawn, you wanted to note the first part of Kevin's question can be done in this format. the grouping is the card sorting part and to also note that we have some grouping ideas drafted
Shawn: the first part doesn't need to be done by card sort. Do we want to do this or not? Card sort would be helpful for the grouping.
Kevin: maybe the group that is virtual could look at the ones that are looking at the ones excluded and make sure they are ok to be excluded.
<kevin> https://
<Marcelo-Paiva> thanks
Kevin: Grouping discussion from Github so people can look before lunch and think about topics.
lunch break
<Amanda> https://
<kevin> Checks Grouped
kevin: explaning how we are going to do the card sorting activity
first is grouping the easy checks and then we will try to name the groups
the team is working with the physical cards, scribing will continue after it is completed
<Marcelo-Paiva> https://
results of card sorting is https://
Shawn: We want to make sure that we're not losing checks. so if we have a section that we may have a "remove for now" let's check to see what we may loose from the original easy checks list.
… we may have additional suggestions as we add others that could be different.
How People with Disabilities use the web
kakinney: new videos created. making sure the stories and the videos match.
https://
kakinney: abilities and barriers and tools and techniques.
… waiting on the transcript for those pages. but other than that I'm not sure what the status of the pages is.
Shadi: there may be an issue with the overall navigation.
Shawn: We wanted to see if we have things for the WG to review and approve
… is the content done though - and then we have to just add the videos and navigation.
Shawn: In terms of meeting times, we are trying to make it easier for you to contribute, so please let us know how we can make it easier for you to contribute.
Tutorials
lots of issues that have been open since 2019. The issues were part of the old version of the template.
Brian: is there a way to have a middle ground to say that the missing files were part of the old broken template, so if the issues is not relevent anymore, we are going to close it. if you still have issues, please open it again.
Shawn: some are the content and some are the template, so if its a content issue, we have to fix that.
Shawn: I think we shouldn't ask them to go check their previous issue - we should do that do diligence.
BrianE: it would be good if we had a developer that could update the tutorials, and they could operate through me. Maybe we can make a team. with a few people who can go back and check for the old issues, and also to do the updates.
Shadi: ACT has an interesting model where the community group does the first pass and contributors can come in more easily to do reviews and then they have to pass checks and THEN it goes to the working group.
… so when the WG gets something they are confident that people have been looking at this and its vetted before they come.
kakinney: possible upcoming work: AARM work for approval
Amanda: do we have an ETA on when new HPwDUtW videos will be published?
Kevin: no, we have some issues that we are trying to work out, but they are not insurmountable. But right now the focus is WCAG 2.2.
kakinney: we are also finishing up getting the transcripts for the video.
Amanda: if we are able to do a day other than Friday she would 100% attend
kakinney: about 3 years ago we had tried to do two meetings a month that were on a different day
kakinney: we sent out note to gauge changing the day but there were some issues for other members
shawn: we don't want to change the day and lose many other members
Amanda: she would absolutely make another day
kakinney: we will put together a survey to check with the other members