Meeting minutes
Jennie: scribe+
Julie: Please ask questions at any time if you are having trouble with any of the interfaces or processes for COGA.
… new member introductions?
Gareth S: I am excited to be here!
Julie: Gareth is a full stack developer, front end and back end
… focusing on neuro-inclusive UX
Julie: Last week was the 1st COGA and coffee chat.
… Hopefully we will have another one soon.
… This is a nice group of people!
… Lisa does orientation for new members.
Global inclusion feedback on COGA patterns
Julie: We are going back to this document - global inclusion community group's review of COGA's patterns
… This is from Making Content Usable
… We are getting ready to update with the new version, new format
… We knew we needed more feedback on how to internationalize the content
… Jan is leading a group reviewing
… The group put together a spreadsheet.
… Review the 2nd tab
… We also received feedback from them about the way we are thinking about structuring the next version.
… This is specific to how we use headers.
… Today we will focus on the more specific feedback from the spreadsheet.
Jan: Lisa wants use to focus on just a few of these.
Julie: I think Lisa wants us to focus on the first few rows.
… The Design is Clear section
… Row #3 is the 1st pattern in this section.
… If we can go through the 1st objective, that should help us prepare to get the patterns into the new format.
Jan: The objectives do not align 100% between the new and older versions.
Charli: The link in the invitation to today's meeting - disregard that link?
Julie: I sent an updated agenda item that I hoped went to the spreadsheet.
Charli: OK. Thank you. I ended up with multiple meetings on my calendar.
<Jan> Community Group Feedback: https://
Julie: Spreadsheet title: Content Usable Patterns - Feedback
… 2nd tab has the name Consolidated Feedback
… Column 3 - Internationalization Issues Rating
Jan: Column C has 3 choices
… The community group added Column D to try to come up with a short description of the categories and issues people are concerned about
… This Column D enables selection of more than one option.
… (reads through the options)
… There are some concerns that we need to think through how things are translated into different languages, and sometimes may not be translatable.
… The community group felt there might be too much focus on equating age with dementia, possibly leading to confusion that they always go together.
… They suggest including other use cases
… The community group - many do not have English as their first language.
… They took time to review, then gathered everyone's feedback onto this tab.
… Column E: notes some people made in their individual tabs, to provide more details.
… There is suggested rewording in different columns, with the person's name.
Gareth: Can you clarify the scope?
Jan: That is a good question.
… We have "page title" from WCAG.
… But I believe this includes how you are using headings on a page.
… For row 3.
Julie: I think this particular one is on the main title, or main heading.
… The accessibility guidelines working group is working on a new way to describe this, such as "main view".
… This is more about the main section header - helping someone orient to "what is the purpose of this"?
Charli: I am interested in the suggested rewrites. Are we using a standard guide for plain language, easily translated, etc?
… I have a suggestion if we do not.
… It would be helpful to know the styleguide.
Jan: We are not doing anything like that yet. Please do share your experience, Charli.
<Charli> Here's the style guide I've used in the past: https://
Jan: We do not have an official way to approach, right Julie?
Julie: I shared the COGA styleguide above (at :28)
… It has best practices.
… I worked on this with Frankie
Charli: I will read through the COGA Style Guide
… The Global Style Guide I posted - might be helpful if some of us mastered it - not everyone needs to do so.
… The emphasis is making it clear and translatable.
Julie: The COGA Style Guide - the Best Practices section.
… When we take what is in the old or original version, and we put it into the new format
… We are trying to use common words, short sentences, active voice, spilt up long paragraphs.
… The new format is designed to encourage to streamline our guidance.
… We have not yet determined how we will reference the older version of the document.
… This includes hyphens, bulleted list elements, etc.
… We can look at the reference Charli referenced.
… The first version of Making Content Usable - we will be using plain language principles in the next version.
… We have received feedback from the internationalization group that sometimes using an active phrase instead of focusing on the outcome can be difficult
… Some aspects of language for internationalization are things we are reviewing.
… Sometimes a more passive but outcome-focused phase can help some people
… Language simplification is a big focus of efforts for the next version.
Charli: Simpler language can sometimes make it more difficult to translate.
… Phrasal verbs are an example.
… This can impact word count (efforts to improve translation), but might be something to add to the best practices.
… I would love to work on how to ensure the language is clear, sentence structure is simple, and highly translatable.
<kirkwood> very good input!
Julie: That would be great. We have an editor's group
… There is also the Structure Subgroup.
… They came up with a design, and now they are taking existing patterns and moving them into the new structure.
… After they get their draft ready they let the COGA editor's know it is ready for review.
… The editor's group looks at the new draft, and look for where it needs help to be clearer, have text refined.
… After the editorial review, after working with the structure group too, then it gets shared with the Global Inclusion Community Group.
… Jan's version was looking at the old version.
… Many of the comments - COGA agrees with some of the issues identified.
… A lot of these items we definitely want to address.
… This document helps us catch everything which needs to be reworked in the next version.
Jan: We tried to capture feedback in a way which could be used by the editorial group.
… We meet every other week on Wednesday mornings.
… You can sign up to join the community group, to get added to the list.
ACTION: item: Invite Charli to the editors calls.
Jan: There are people from around the world.
… In the last meeting we were trying to provide feedback around the work related to structure.
… Frankie created a spreadsheet with the anticipated structure for the new version.
… Each link in column A takes you to the current wording in Making Content Usable
… Column E has the notes
… Makoto included feedback related to vertical writing.
… Does anyone have any specific questions?
Julie: This spreadsheet is taking the original document (which has objectives, design patterns) and provides the internationalization feedback.
… The next version will have possibly differently named objectives in the next version.
… It may get a bit confusing as the information moves around a bit
… But no matter how we repackage in the new version we need to ensure we don't repeat those English-centric issues identified.
… We will take all of this into account for the new version.
Jan: 4.2.3 was found to be especially difficult to read by this group.
… We also have a notes document because of some of the issues people were having following along
<Jan> global-inclusion notes document: https://
Jan: This gives the history, shows the next meeting (May 7, next Wednesday)
Julie: The "needs sensitivity review" - is that category (row 8) - is the sensitivity review about ageism?
Jan: Mostly people reading through the patterns top to bottom - impacted by people writing individual ones, as opposed to reading the objectives top to bottom
… Some items kept coming up with a thought about ageism
… Examples need to be more diverse, was the feedback.
Julie: OK, that is helpful.
… Once we get all patterns ready for the new format, for version 2
… And they do this review again.
… Is that how you envision?
Jan: There is a spreadsheet already created by Frankie for this, but we have not yet used it.
… It was helpful to review the current drafts to understand the general structure.
… Next time we will talk about the What To Do section
… We didn't get to that at our last meeting.
Julie: It would be helpful for the Global Inclusion group to wait until we have the first full objective
… So you can get that wholistic perspective - to look at things as a group, to repeat to see if this is now more diverse.
… We have a couple more to complete, and can let you know when ready for that.
Julie: Does anyone in the group have any questions about what we have been discussing?
Charli: There are some diagrams I would really love
… Like the groups that meet at different times than this group, who is on each group, and the stuff we work on
ACTION: item: Consider making a diagram of the different COGA subgroups and what they're working on
Julie: We might have talked about this in the past.
… I think this would help for onboarding.
Charli: There is too much for a 30 minute phone call for onboarding.
… I still had additional questions.
<Jan> This is a draft email for recruiting members to the Internationalization Accessibility Community Group, with a short name of global-inclusion. Toward the end of the text, there are instructions for how to join the group: https://
Julie: Thanks.
… Any other questions or comments?
Gareth: If there is a list for all the meetings and when they are, it would be appreciated.
Tiffany (in the Zoom chat): https://
Jan: Please email me if you would like to be invited to the group we were discussing.
… It is at 9am eastern, every other Wednesday
ACTION: item: Update the COGA subgroups, which is outdated.
Julie: thank you for all the suggestions, and to Jan for walking us through the spreadsheet.
… The Monday call - this call - the big COGA call.
… Thursdays at 9am Boston time is the subgroup time.
… There are editor calls on Tuesday and Thursdays
… There are other calls which happen on different days and times.
… There is always something on Thursdays at 11 eastern
<julierawe> Thank you, Jennie_Delisi for scribing!