W3C

– DRAFT –
Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force Teleconference

29 September 2025

Attendees

Present
Abi, Charli, Charu, Eric_hind, Jennie, kirkwood, LenB, Rain
Regrets
Becca, Jan
Chair
-
Scribe
Jennie, Lisa

Meeting minutes

<Lisa> item 6 is citations short notation . See https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XkQW4iWD_nfUYhKqZWmXy6o1cM_Hy4IpsGgRFqGZP7U/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.cvltb8oa6265

<Lisa> next item

<Lisa> https://docs.google.com/document/d/15HtPkkYx1CIl6bAwP2nsSZKhqTVbqcuMDRz5RmtmvXg/edit?tab=t.8zemqdwbcwtr

Lisa: Scribe list is now in the Word doc: Coga Action Items

<Lisa> next item

<Lisa> close item 1

Lisa: Citations is next topic

<Lisa> next item

Lisa: (reviewing references section - 7.4)
… 2 spreadsheets with research from literary reviews
… multiple sheets viewable at bottom of screen
… Working to use format similar to W3C
… W3C has a style manual.
… w3.rog/guide/manual-of-style/#ref-section
… w3.org/guide/manual-of-style/#ref-section
… Supported Decision Making - attempt made to follow this
… Added the paper name
… This makes it hard to read
… References being connected was difficult too
… For literature reviews like Mental Health Literature Review this is proving challenging
… github area displaying JSON
… abbreviations can use a script to move information into the W3C format.
… If you put in the code following what is in the reference section from the W3C manual of style, it will put this in the correct format for you

<Charli> Lisa, please enlarge each of the browser pages you go to. I can't see what you're talking about.

Lisa: For the Mental Health Literature Review (Responses) spreadsheet Lisa is adding information to support the citation process to follow the W3C manual of style
… That's the proposal
… Inline put the key in

Charli: Reminder: some attendees need the screen enlarged for each screen.

Lisa: Members: please interrupt whenever this is a challenge.
… Will do a summary of the previous material
… Trying to put in citations
… Using the W3C style guide
… This includes: short name for a specification, with link.
… They want you to add square brackets with a link to the section for references
… This proved cumbersome for COGA
… Example: there could be multiple references for a particular topic.
… COGA tried using an alternative method but the names were too long
… This added a lot of coding in addition to making it hard to read.
… And, this added the need for an anchor in the references section.
… Then, when citing something, you needed to reference to the anchor in the references section.
… Not so easy.
… This must be changed.
… (displaying the Mental Health Literature Review)
… This spreadsheet has a new column for the "key"
… Assigning a unique key to each citation.
… Then, when doing the citation: put in the square brackets is the key
… Then, the github has the same information from the spreadsheet (like the author's name)
… The github includes the key
… This has JSON
… Then, a script goes into any file
… They keys builds the reference in the reference section, properly links
… Then authors just need to add the key

Rain: I've done research on text someone is trying to read, which has supporting information inside punctuation like parentheses
… They can make reading quite difficult.
… The reader is supposed to read the paragraph text (unlinked).
… For those with a reading disability the punctuation around the links create difficulty reading.
… What are the alternatives?
… Can we shorten it to the short name?

Lisa: Proposal: something like instead of it being inline it would be at the end of the paragraph.

Rain: that would help.
… Also, it would help to have it styled differently: font, color....is visually different from the other text.
… This provides clarity that it is different.

Lisa: Like italics?

Rain: Making it smaller and not italicizing it might be better.

Lisa: They are telling us in the style guide that having the square brackets around the short name, and that takes us to the reference section in the document.

Rain: I think playing with the styling would help so we can ensure it is visually distinct.

Lisa: (notes in the comments the changes discussed)

Charli: I understand the desire to emphasize.
… Moving them to the end is a good way to handle them.
… Also, color contrast will be important
… (cites the WCAG standards for this)
… It still needs to be visible.

Lisa: This would receive an accessibility review.

Charli: I think experimenting is a great idea.

Lisa: (noting in the comments) We need to give it a class name so we can experiment with the font.
… This way if it gets in an editor's draft, if people have challenges with it, it is a line of code we can change.
… Do we agree with that?

Eric: My only concern: the W3C puts the links at the point of the sentence, which would make this non-standard.
… Would this be something we need to consider?

Lisa: Do we want it at the end? I think we are doing more citations.
… Maybe for standards we should do it in the original way.
… Sometimes the short name is what is discussed in text and how people know it (inline). What about that?

Rain: I think I would need to see how we are intending it to look.
… The idea: not to make it disruptive.

Rain: This is more about a style guide.

<Rain> +1 to Jennie's recommendation here. It has to do with the flow of the reading.

Jennie: Maybe we want inline citations more similar and citation only to be more distinct visually

Lisa: We could try it with a single paper and see if we are happy with it.
… Are we also happy using this JSON format?
… Putting it in JSON, then just referencing it.

<Eric_hind> +1

Len: +1

Lisa: Any objections?

<Lisa> +1

Lisa: Any other points?

<Lisa> next item

Lisa: Next topic - what is the short name?
… Laws and references, academic papers, resources.
… I think we should have different protocols for how we create the keys and short titles for each type.
… Example: for laws like Section 508, we can use the abbreviation the way it is known.
… For the COGA 2 Literature Review and update document
… I created a sheet for standards and laws (bottom tab)
… Then we can fill in the information there, and have a different key for each law.
… Other examples are WCAG 1.1, WCAG 1.2, etc.
… Are we comfortable using the standard short name?

<Lisa> +1

<Eric_hind> +1

<Abi> +1

<Rain> +1

<Charli> +1

<kirkwood> +1

Lisa: Any objections?

Lisa: Next - citations for papers.

<LenB> +1

Lisa: A suggestion: surname (last name) for single author
… Gets more complicated when more than one with the same name.
… 1st 3 letters based on name of 1st author
… This gets difficult when in different databases, but this is a technical issue to solve.

Charli: Do other W3C papers use a convention like this?

Lisa: no

Charli: why wouldn't we use the full surname?

Lisa: W3C proposes the title of the document or the known short name.
… The titles are very long.
… We want our own convention.
… We could use the row and database we have it in.
… RMH (resources, mental health) followed by a number
… RC (for COGA 2 Literature Review and Update) followed by a number
… The problem identified - they might get out of order.
… This may confuse people.
… Though they would be links.
… But they may be in a different order than they were cited.
… q?

Lisa: Also, we have to be sure that the different databases do not conflict or overwrite what is in the other databases

Len: For the new tab/sheet (Other Resources) we don't have a lot of resources.
… What I did: used keys which were acronyms as a place holder
… Row 5: M-AA-1 is the one Lisa added

Lisa: I want to divide this discussion into multiple areas

Len: looking at the last row we have a law, but I don't know what the short name of this law is
… In Row 8, is called The Colby Act - would this be the key?
… Or Colby Act?

Lisa: How people in the field refer to it.
… Most people use the short name.

Jennie: if something has a short name and a number for the actual law, can this be searched in the document?

Lisa: Yes.

<Lisa> ([CSS3UI], section 4.1).

Lisa: It will be in the same reference section.

Lisa: Do we prefer using some kind of reference based on the primary author or 1st 3 letters? Or, prefer reference where it is in database?

<LenB> my perference is where it is in the database

Lisa: My preference is the database 1.
… Julie's preference: based on the author.
… But I do not want to vote.

<Eric_hind> prefer database

<Charli> My preference is the database.

<Rain> database

<Abi> database, but without strong feelings

<Rain> If we use author's name, then it should be the full name, not first letters only (more readable)

Charu: I don't have a strong feeling either way.

Lisa: Database is what the group prefers.

<Lisa> RMH- 1 , RCL-3,

Lisa: Does anyone have strong opinions about the number of letters?

Jennie: if we keep the letters for the database, but would the numbers become problematic for some members of the group?

<Lisa> RM-Smith1

Lisa: you would still need to track that there aren't 2 Smiths in the database

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 244 (Thu Feb 27 01:23:09 2025 UTC).

Diagnostics

Maybe present: Eric, Len, Lisa

All speakers: Charli, Charu, Eric, Jennie, Len, Lisa, Rain

Active on IRC: Abi, Charli, Charu, Eric_hind, Jennie, kirkwood, LenB, Lisa, Rain