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15:53:40 <Zakim> RRSAgent, make logs Public
15:53:41 <Zakim> please title this meeting ("meeting: ..."), Matt_King
15:53:57 <Matt_King> MEETING: ARIA and Assistive Technologies Community Group
15:54:20 <Matt_King> CHAIR: Matt King
15:54:23 <Matt_King> present+
15:58:25 <Joe_Humbert> Joe_Humbert has joined #aria-at
16:01:02 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike has joined #aria-at
16:03:41 <mmoss> mmoss has joined #aria-at
16:03:57 <jugglinmike> present+ jugglinmike
16:04:09 <mmoss> present+
16:04:09 <jugglinmike> scribe+ jugglinmike
16:04:09 <jugglinmike> present+ Joe_Humbert
16:04:14 <jugglinmike> present+ Matt_King
16:04:21 <jugglinmike> present+ siri
16:04:24 <siri> siri has joined #aria-at
16:05:18 <Matt_King> agenda: https://github.com/w3c-cg/aria-at/wiki/July-1%2C-2026-Agenda
16:05:19 <agendabot> clear agenda
16:05:19 <agendabot> agenda+ Review agenda and next meeting dates
16:05:19 <agendabot> agenda+ Current interop reporting status
16:05:19 <agendabot> agenda+ Update on infra engineering training
16:05:19 <agendabot> agenda+ Draft review of minimal data grid test plan
16:05:22 <agendabot> agenda+ Plans for AT Driver specification
16:06:01 <jugglinmike> zakim, next item
16:06:01 <Zakim> agendum 1 -- Review agenda and next meeting dates -- taken up [from agendabot]
16:06:11 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Requests for changes to agenda?
16:06:18 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Hearing none, we'll stick with the agenda as planned
16:06:23 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Next CG meeting: Wednesday July 15
16:06:41 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next item
16:06:41 <Zakim> agendum 1 was just opened, jugglinmike
16:06:52 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next item
16:06:52 <Zakim> agendum 1 was just opened, jugglinmike
16:07:42 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next agendum
16:07:42 <Zakim> agendum 2 -- Current interop reporting status -- taken up [from agendabot]
16:07:59 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I'm now quite familiar with why we put off the rating radio group
16:08:20 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: So we're still at 3 at draft, 3 at candidate review, and 21 at recommended
16:08:33 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We're in a pretty solid place for getting two of those plans into candidate review
16:08:47 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I thought I'd have more time for this work, but it's not working out that way
16:09:02 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I'm struggling to find the time to have talks with Apple for the purpose of advancement of test plans
16:09:13 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: This is one of the things that are stuck due to my capacity right now
16:09:58 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next agendum
16:09:58 <Zakim> agendum 3 -- Update on infra engineering training -- taken up [from agendabot]
16:10:17 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We've completed all of our scheduled training
16:10:20 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: And we have a recording of that
16:10:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: However, that really only covered getting started
16:10:36 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We have three starting issues that we're looking for people to sign up for
16:10:54 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: mmoss, do you have your environment fully set up now?
16:11:24 <jugglinmike> mmoss: On my personal system (not my work system). I'm still having a weird pathing issue on my work system, though.
16:12:01 <jugglinmike> mmoss: If you don't set up the VoiceOver driver correctly the first time, then you can get into a bad state from which it's difficult to recover
16:12:46 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: If you want to sign up to own the VoiceOver Bot upgrade issue, then there's a link in the agenda (issue number 1364) that has a link to each of the "upgrade" issues
16:12:50 <jugglinmike> https://github.com/w3c/aria-at/issues/1364#issuecomment-4607704338
16:13:23 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Once we have an owner for each of those issues, the plan is to schedule a pair-programming meeting with ChrisC and/or jugglinmike as a way to safely get your feet wet
16:13:30 <jugglinmike> mmoss: That makes sense.
16:13:54 <jugglinmike> mmoss: Right now, that issue seems to include only placeholder text
16:14:03 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Right, we don't have very much detail right now
16:14:19 <siri> present+
16:14:21 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I think we've reached at least version 26.5 by now
16:14:26 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I'm happy to take that on
16:15:06 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Great! I'll start an e-mail thread with jugglinmike and chrisc to help get things scheduled. It will be an open meeting so that others can join if they wish, but we just need to find a time that works for the three of you
16:15:12 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next agendum
16:15:12 <Zakim> agendum 4 -- Draft review of minimal data grid test plan -- taken up [from agendabot]
16:15:21 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: So JAWS is 100% complete with 7 conflicts
16:15:30 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: NVDA is 79% complete with 6 conflicts
16:15:44 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: VoiceOver has 4 conflicts
16:15:51 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We previously talked about VoiceOver
16:16:24 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We agreed that we would pass the conflicts about discrepancies in how VoiceOver conveys the role. We intentionally leave room for differentiation there
16:17:16 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: However, we did identify a problem with the difference between "table" and "grid" since the latter is interactive, and users will have no way of recognizing the availability of that interactivity if the word "table" is used to describe the role
16:17:34 <jugglinmike> I described this in an issue, here: https://github.com/w3c/aria-at/issues/1375
16:18:04 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: The strange thing is that we might have to call this a blocking issue for table (unless they want to change their grid support, like to call it "grid" or "interactive table" or whatever they'd like to do)
16:18:21 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Before we talk about JAWS, does anyone have any feedback on that?
16:18:45 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I'm concerned about passing that, since it gives Apple cause to say, "well, we passed it, so why do we need to change it?"
16:18:58 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Tables are very different than interactive data grids
16:19:11 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I think conflating them has a very negative user impact
16:19:31 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: dean and Elizabeth performed the testing here. Dean marked it as passing, and Elizabeth marked it as failing
16:19:44 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Together, we agreed to change Elizabeth's results
16:20:14 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: The point I raised was to force the conflict without failing. I tried to capture our logic in that issue--issue 1375
16:20:32 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: It would be helpful if you want to add a conflict to that issue stating your stance that a change here is critical
16:20:52 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I'm hesitant to change all of those to "failing" because we have said that we aren't going to force screen readers to use specific words
16:21:06 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I guess we can say, "you don't have to use a specific role, but you can't use 'table'"
16:21:17 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Right. You can't use the same role to represent two different things
16:21:30 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: You're making me question whether or not we should pass or fail those
16:21:41 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: This goes back to some of the conflicts that I had with Dean
16:22:01 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I passed it because I knew he would fail it so that it would show up as a conflict and we could have this conversation
16:22:20 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I don't think the behavior is okay; the question is at which point in the process we highlight the concern
16:22:37 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I would vote for failing it. If we say they pass but we want them to change it, that hurts our argument
16:23:05 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: But like always, I'm going to defer to the group
16:23:21 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Dean said last night that he would hold off on finishing until some of these conflicts are resolved
16:24:12 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think your logic is strong, Joe_Humbert. I'm leaning toward rewriting issue 1375, to say that we actually fail these. It's not that we're dictating which word; we're just saying don't use "table" because that's already assigned to a different role in ARIA/HTML
16:24:29 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: It's almost as if I used the word "text" to describe the role of a button
16:25:54 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: I wonder if we want to clarify in the assertion text, e.g. "it distinctly conveys the role 'data grid'"
16:26:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: That would impact a lot of assertions. Maybe we can address this in the project documentation on the interpretation of assertions. That would allow us to keep the assertions very succinct
16:27:03 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think when we have assertions like "role 'button' is conveyed", I don't think we have guidance on what it actually means to convey the role successfully. Like, what does it mean to pass an fail?
16:27:28 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Maybe we should get the AT implementers aligned on the parameters for passing and failing those assertions
16:27:37 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: Yeah, I think that could go a long way
16:28:08 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: That conversation has come up with Apple and with Vispero. That is, the interpretation of assertions. I don't think our glossary defines the terms
16:28:31 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: This is defining the meaning of passing and failing for specific types of assertions, and that is something we have not done. It feels like something that would be beneficial
16:28:40 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I feel like I should capture this in an issue...
16:29:13 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We need to define the meaning of "passing"/"failing" and "supported"/"unsupported" for each of our types of assertions
16:30:01 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Types of assertions isn't something we have defined, either. Now, though, we have enough history and data to write something meaningful about each of them. I think we only have, like, four or five kinds of assertions so far
16:30:40 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: With a few thousand assertions written, we have a pretty good basis for policy
16:30:49 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: And there's also negative assertions
16:30:57 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Oh, right. We should include those as well
16:31:04 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I'm going to write an issue for this.
16:31:51 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I took some notes, and I'll refer to the minutes of this meeting, too
16:32:16 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think Joe_Humbert has made a strong case for this. I'm going to change Dean's results and change the text of the issue I previously posted
16:32:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think we should probably talk about the JAWS conflicts, then
16:32:33 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: So this is mmoss and Joe_Humbert
16:32:40 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: The first conflict is in test 1!
16:33:00 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: The output is identical between the two
16:33:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Joe_Humbert failed it and mmoss passed it
16:34:00 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: If I remember correctly, this was because I was getting different results depending on which mode it was in.
16:34:07 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I guess I'll just change my results...
16:34:13 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: It says "virtual cursor active"
16:34:28 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: In this case, and in my experience with JAWS, this behavior is pretty reliable
16:34:38 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Okay, I'll change mine to "pass"
16:34:45 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Okay, that's the first conflict
16:35:07 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Now, for test 5...
16:35:33 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I see this happen a lot with JAWS, but I never know the conditions that cause it. It always feels unpredictable. In this case, both of you got the same output
16:35:49 <jugglinmike> mmoss: This was a weird one. It says "not in table" but it is very clearly in the table
16:36:14 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: It's a strange thing that happens with JAWS. When it happens, I sometimes do "Insert + Escape" to refresh the virtual buffer. But sometimes I can't get the problem to go away
16:36:21 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Why does this report as a conflict?
16:36:26 <jugglinmike> mmoss: We both failed them...
16:36:52 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: The impact is also identical. It's just the "details" that differ. I don't think the system compares that field
16:37:09 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: This is for "control + alt + left arrow"
16:37:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: It didn't have side effects. It just didn't work
16:37:38 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think we can just fail it without a negative side effect
16:37:53 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I'm happy to change it. We're going to encounter this with another test in this test plan
16:38:13 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Okay. Simply failing will be enough for the people at Vispero to recognize the problem
16:38:36 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We also have output after "left arrow" with the PC cursor active
16:39:00 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: "To activate, press enter" is included in Joe_Humbert's output but not mmoss's
16:39:14 <jugglinmike> mmoss: Mine has "description" and "column three" in my output
16:39:18 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: And mine does not
16:39:42 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I encountered what Joe_Humbert did, but only when I was NOT in PC cursor mode
16:40:13 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Ah, that is the column heading. I've certainly experienced (with PC cursor) situations where the column heading doesn't get read. I don't remember if I had that problem in this grid when I ran this test, though.
16:40:19 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I was getting the column heading reliably
16:40:24 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I'll double-check a little bit later
16:40:49 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Same version of JAWS but not the same browser version. I don't think that will make a difference
16:40:53 <jugglinmike> mmoss: Me neither
16:41:25 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Did you have to change the mode to get to PC cursor? (I want to make sure I'm approaching this in a similar way)
16:41:29 <jugglinmike> mmoss: I don't remember
16:41:45 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I'll double-check and update this one
16:41:59 <jugglinmike> mmoss: And if you send an e-mail, then we can follow up asynchronously
16:43:15 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: The other two are the same. We have the same negative side-effect and the same severity. It's only the "details" that differ
16:43:22 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: The text there shouldn't matter...
16:43:51 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I can copy and past the details to verify whether that matters
16:44:17 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Going back to test 5 for a moment, the column header is not being read
16:44:44 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: In test 10, when I copy mmoss's details verbatim, then the conflict goes away
16:45:08 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: That seems strange
16:46:10 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I'm going to copy mmoss's details for the other conflicting results
16:47:38 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: We've calling this "moderate" because it's not gobs and gobs of extra information. The "bottom of file" part of the output is confusing, though. Adrian was mentioning that one of the most common usages of this is Google Sheets. Maybe that has to do with it, but that's pretty presumptuous
16:47:49 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: That was test 10 and test 11
16:48:26 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I can't wait until we have the latest JAWS bot installed because I think there has been a lot of changes made since version 2025--some positive and some negative
16:48:39 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Great, so we reviewed all of the conflicts for JAWS
16:48:51 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We don't have Dean present to talk about NVDA
16:49:19 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: I can change mine because our output is identical. I created conflicts in order to prompt discussion here during this meeting
16:49:32 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: But you are agreeing with the way that Dean recorded his results, right?
16:49:37 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: Yes
16:50:02 <jugglinmike> Joe_Humbert: So I will update to the correct information
16:50:11 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Cool. Hopefully that will unblock Dean
16:50:22 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Now, Dean isn't present to talk about changing his results for VoiceOver, either
16:50:27 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: But that would wrap up data grid
16:51:41 <jugglinmike> Zakim, next agendum
16:51:41 <Zakim> agendum 5 -- Plans for AT Driver specification -- taken up [from agendabot]
16:52:28 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I wanted to make sure that everybody here (and everybody reading the minutes) is aware of AT Driver--what it is, what it does, and why it's important for ARIA-AT
16:52:34 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We need some help in this space
16:52:48 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Even if you are not the right person to work on this, some of you may know the person who is the right kind of person
16:52:59 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: So please think of this in that way as much as you can. Who do you know?
16:53:14 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I included a link in the agenda to the Editor's Draft of the AT Driver specification
16:53:18 <jugglinmike> https://w3c.github.io/at-driver/
16:53:43 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: This is a specification for an API that screen readers can implement so that somebody else can "drive" that assistive technology via another program
16:54:06 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We want to be able to tell an assistive technology, "do X and give us your response"
16:54:36 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: Or in other words, we want to be able to script anything a user can do with an assistive technology
16:54:38 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Right
16:55:02 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: There are parallel technologies for browsers: WebDriver and WebDriver BiDi both allow users to script web browsers in that way
16:55:16 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We need this capability to have interoperability in assistive technologies
16:55:25 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: This is the tech that is behind the ARIA-AT project's "bots"
16:55:48 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We want to be able to write a test and then essentially feed them to a screen reader in a format that a screen reader can respond to
16:56:03 <jugglinmike> Hadi: do we want to be able to use them from the desktop apps, not necessarily from the browser?
16:56:07 <jugglinmike> present+ Hadi
16:56:28 <jugglinmike> Hadi: My understanding is that we want a kind of API that I can embed in my app so that it can selectively do stuff that a screen reader would do
16:56:52 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: If you have an app that you want to test, and you want to be able to write a script that says, "run a screen reader and perform these actions in my app"
16:57:08 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I believe we have written this in such a way that is not constrained to the browser context
16:57:23 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: All of our implementations are related to browser technologies
16:57:46 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: I think we've built AT Driver in a way that is not limited to driving apps inside of a browser
16:59:06 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: That's right
16:59:15 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We're just about out of time
16:59:45 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: To become a standard, you need the support of a standards body. We're working through the W3C even though it is a web-focused organization because we think that's a good home to do the work
17:00:21 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We need to make sure there are enough people to help. These are essentially volunteers; the W3C doesn't pay people to do standards development; it coordinates that work
17:00:37 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: jugglinmike has been the only editor to work on this so far. We're short on funding from when Meta pulled funding
17:00:44 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We have applied for one grant
17:01:01 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Even if we have someone who could spend just a few hours a week, that would be better than nothing
17:01:21 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Are there other kinds of support that we could seek from across the community to help move this forward?
17:01:51 <jugglinmike> jugglinmike: I don't have a great answer to that question right now
17:02:28 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: Okay. We're in a bit of a state of limbo right now because W3C charters are getting renewed. One of the challenges that the people who run the committees are facing is that the spec is at a bit of a standstill at the moment
17:02:46 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: So if you are (or know people who are) interested, then jugglinmike and I would be very happy to know
17:03:50 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: This is ground-breaking work. If there are things we can do to help raise the visibility of what the need is, then I'd love to talk about that
17:03:57 <jugglinmike> Matt_King: We're at time. We can talk more about this in the future
17:05:08 <jugglinmike> Zakim, end the meeting
17:05:08 <Zakim> As of this point the attendees have been Matt_King, jugglinmike, mmoss, Joe_Humbert, siri, Hadi
17:05:10 <Zakim> RRSAgent, please draft minutes
17:05:11 <RRSAgent> I have made the request to generate https://www.w3.org/2026/07/01-aria-at-minutes.html Zakim
17:05:18 <Zakim> I am happy to have been of service, jugglinmike; please remember to excuse RRSAgent.  Goodbye
17:05:18 <Zakim> Zakim has left #aria-at