JB: The Tech Act Projects (Diane Golden, Missouri) have issued a survey targeted to online developers about Web Accessibility. Judy will follow-up on this.
JB: Judy presented on October 18, 2001 at a Massachusetts leadership forum. Massachusetts is a state that is using the Web content accessibility guidelines. This year the conformance is level A; next year it becomes AA. Some agencies are making good progress; others are just learning about it.
CV: I did not participate in meeting last week.
CV: He participated in a proposal regarding Web accessibility. Don't know what the final draft will be but this is in the initial stages. The draft is publicly available.
AA: He did a presentation to a group from "Disability Information Network Australia" (http://home.vicnet.net.au/~dina/) about people with disabilities using the Web, Web accessibility in general, WAI guidelines, assessment tools, and management issues.
The participants were librarians and he provided overview of accessibility. Many of the disability organizations were not aware of the guidelines.
JB: I try to meet with disability organizations as I travel. What are others doing? I want to make sure that there is outreach to the disability community.
AA: They are interested in delivery of services rather than communications.
CV: I agree with AA. They have a lack of personnel with the appropriate technical skills.
HBj: We tried to involve the disability community several years ago. Some people think of "disability" because it's about persons who are blind or who have learning disabilities.
JB: Need to focus on materials that are appropriate for users.
HBj: We have a good beginning with "Getting Started."
LC: Need to consider some pro bono work.
CL: Asked by Canadian Institute for the Blind to provide list of notes that they can use when inquiries are received. Many of the service organizations do not have information and resources.
JB: I would be interested to see the talking points.
JB: How many would be interested in working with CL?
DS, JD, CV, HBj: yes
JB: Would you be interested in turning this into a joint discussion?
CL: I would be willing to share this.
JB: Can you send us something and we can include on the agenda.
HBj: I received an E-mail about online banking. DS, do you have anything about online banking systems?
JB: I wrote an article about a year and a half ago.
HBj, AA: Can we have copies?
DS: I will check to see what has been done.
JB: In regard to article I wrote, I will need to look at it and see how useful it is.
KA: The bank I do business with has an accessibility statement. It's Fleet Bank.
JB: Can you send a pointer? Doyle, does Wells Fargo have a statement? (Pointer from KA on bank accessibility Fleet.com: Security)
DS: I will contact one of our lawyers and check on this.
AA: We are working with several banks in AU. I would like to share this with them and encourage them.
HB: Electronic books 2001 is Nov. 5-7 in Washington, D.C. Nov. 7-8 there is a conference in Harrisburg, PA.
JB: Could you please send notice to WAI events list?
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/impl/
JB: Last week, we discussed implementation plan and I offered to work on the document. There's a pointer to a draft. We agreed that the resource suite was so cumbersome and I suggested that we split it into business case and implementation plan. The old document is still there and comparisons can be made between old document and new one. I tried to take highlights of implementation plan and add details from CV's corporate plan aand details of Natasha's draft. This is an initial outline. I wrote a few questions about this in the agenda. What is the reaction?
CL: I love it. It seems nice. It's got all of the information on one page. Redundancies are reduced. May need to consider highlighting. Could add subcategories. This will lengthen the document.
HBj: It's much clearer. I agree with CL. It provides an overview.
JB: One of the things that we noted last week, with the exception of the corporate implementation plan and Natasha's piece, that it had been very difficult to obtain starter drafts for other environments. We discussed various alternatives last week. We don't know yet how we will display this.
CV: It looks like a good umbrella page. For companies, may need something more specific.
DS: I like it. It's about the right size. I'd like to go over details but it's close to what I would want.
JB: The details are not specific. We could have a version that is stripped out with just bulleted list. Isn't there a way to do expansion lists?
CL: Could be done accessibly server side.
KA: How would you do that?
CV: Can be done with PHP.
KA: DHTML and java scripts.
CL: With server side, it can be accessible.
JB: Isn't that slow?
CL: I recommend to clients that the default be no script. Combine both server side and client side techniques.
CV: It may make slow server down.
JB: CL, can you write me two sentences about what you said?
CL: I will put on list.
JB: Let's continue discussion.
HBj: What would we want to put on with this technique?
JB: Look at "Assign Coordination" section. Under bullets, can see types of details that can be annotated. If we put in a lot of detail, this document might be lengthy. We could hide the second detail. Just put a link or expansion of text icon. We could have subpages organized according to setting.
AA: I like the idea that you suggested, JB. Could have "show hints" links.
HB: A number of these categories can apply to a number of organizations.
JD: I agree with AA. We can have all the same first level headings with subheadings.
JB: Is your suggestion that the subheadings be structured.
LC: What about non-profits? I would like to have explicit link for non-profits and NGO's.
KA: Need to add government link. I like it.
DS: If we expand the primary page to 3 pages, this is about the right length. Cognitively, this seems appropriate. I want to reemphasize that I like this.
JB: Are you saying, when drop second level bullets, it's about 2 pages?
DS: yes
JB: This is the first implementation of the split. We would have one resource suite on implementation. This would presume that we have business case. If look at heading of document. The first one, Implementation Plan, would be this page. The second one, Developing Organizational Policies, is one our appendices. The third one, Selecting Authoring Tools, is a resource page that we haven't written. The fourth one, Evaluating Web Sites, we have written, and could be reintegrated into this. The last one is Sample Implementation Plans. Do you like it?
CV: I have a preliminary question. When we started we wanted concrete examples. Does this change the focus?
JB: We said that we were not able to pull together the examples. So, we abandoned this approach.
HBj: Is the last one the same one we talked about?
JB: Maybe we should discard "Sample Implementation Plans"? There's no link for the expanded details.
HBj: Would you be able to read expanded details on their own without this page?
JB: I was thinking of having separate pages for different environments. Let's say for an educational setting, you keep same structure, you have one or two notes or hints. Then, divide page and under that, give implementation plan that is brief. Could have a page that has hints for schools and then fictitious plans for schools.
LC: I like the structure but worry that fictitious cases would be dated.
HB: Can write them so that they don't get dated?
JB: Let me ask yes or no questions. On the basic question of the split of the resource suite, does anyone disagree with split?
No comments from the group.
JB: I assume that we will just deal with implementation plan. Does anyone disagree with attempting to use expansion of detail approach?
CV: This is a generic how-to page. But, when get to specific organizations, will need to customize.
JB: Does anyone disagree with taking content out?
AA: I don't disagree. Doesn't mean that because if we don't have a hint, we may not want to drop. May not want to remove high level of detail.
DS: I agree. It's going to be tricky but we may need to be careful.
LC: I am reluctant to edit now before we map out this suite.
JB: Would you feel comfortable that we could agree to approach? Agree to try stripping top page and creating some kind of expandable detail. I have two assumptions: the old umbrella page for the implementation plan, I will put a note that says "This page has been superceded by…" I will put a pointer to this. The second thing, is that this would supercede Natasha's draft. Does not necessarily mean that we will supercede CV's draft.
HB: I don't want to lose content of Natasha's draft.
JB: Could use her draft as a resource.
LC: Don't want to mix format with content.
JB: Content needs to be integrated.
HB: The class attribute on objects can be used.
JB: We will need to talk about mechanics. Let's talk about content. I will ask a few people to help with display and formatting issues. Let's walk through it.
LC: Delete term "management."
KA: What about the word "useful."
Suggestions: important, necessary, critical
KA: Use of the term "environments."
LC: I like the term "environment" because it does not make place restrictions to brick and mortar organizations.
Assign Coordination
JB: Let's look at "Assign Coordination."
AA: Could we have a quick discussion of h1 and h2 so that we get right headings.
DS: Who assigns?
HB: Coordinate?
JB: Coordinate may mean process of communication. What about establish responsibilities for?
LC: What about establish needs and priorities?
JB: How understandable is "baseline?"
HBj: I don't have any problems.
JB:To me, what you are saying is related to second heading.
LC: Educational institutions might balk at "assess baseline."
JB: Assess baseline could be bullet. What if the header is "assess needs and establish priorities."
HBj: Need to find baseline.
AA: I concur with that. Introduce another topic priorities.
KA: What are the needs?
LC: "Assess baseline" may not be relevant for some educational organizations.
JB: We want to be generic. Other terms for baseline?
HB: starting point
HS: initial assessment
JB: conduct initial assessment
AA: current situation
JB: Assess current situation. Does that work?
HS: I think that is initial assessment. This means that they want to have initial assessment in order to arrange what they have to do.
JB: Conduct initial assessment.
AA: We're talking about organization, not just Web.
JB: New h2: Establish priorities and resource needs
AA: and repair needs
JB: How about establish priorities and needs. Next, "Develop organizational policy."
LC: Is it always "develop?"
JB: If have a multi-part organization, this may not apply.
AA: We have already allowed for this, under h2 we have previously said that find out whether there is an existing policy.
AA: Before establish a policy, need to identify people and resources.
JB: We said that developing organization should be part of this. We are presuming that organizations don't have policy.
AA: Read the introduction to this document.
JB: Select software. What do you think about this as a heading, wording?
AA: I like it.
DS: Not many organizations are aware that there is software available.
AA: It raises the idea that the software has been selected at higher level.
JB: Promote awareness. Wording? Placement?
No comments.
JB: Provide training. Wording? Placement?
No comments.
JB: Monitor. Wording? Placement?
No comments
JB: Ensure follow-up. Wording? Placement?
HB: There is an implication that follow-up has a person committed to it.
JB: I'd like to jump to other things. I'd like to suggest that we do E-mail discussion on the list. I would like to request that we start discussion about hide and display information. It sounded like CL, AA, KA may have some ideas. Would you be willing to have discussion on list?
DS: I have some ideas, as well.
JB: I provided a link in today's agenda to the archive. If you look at those, from the bottom of the list, there are some comments. One individual asked for demographics. Yesterday, one of my close colleagues was able to provide statistics. I would like to talk with her about writing up something. If this is ok, I will reply to commenter: "Thank you for your comment. We are aware of need for demographic information. We plan to address this in the near future."
AA: Not too "near."
JB: I agree. Is this acceptable?
LC: It would be wonderful to have this.
JB: Another commenter made a comment on tabbing navigation. I did reply to him and pointed him to the minutes of October 5. I attempted one new tabbing order. I will invite discussion on the list. Any comments? Any disagreement?
No comments.
JB: Please speak up if you have other comments. The other commenter wrote that "appropriate sequence" is vague. He suggested that we provide something that testers can measure. His second comment was about logical order. We could send these comments to content group or accessibility group.
JD: I agree with point on logical order. Right to left, top to bottom is not necessarily the logical order.
JB: Does this need more definition?
JD: I think that logical order is a matter of judgment.
JB: In the interest of time, I will thank commenter and that there are some different views. We will discuss it further and may also bring it up with content group. Can we talk about this on the list?
Yes
JB: We have an opportunity to meet at Tech Plenary in Nice. We can talk about this next week. Have we discussed this before? Is this new?
No comments.
JB: Sounds like we haven't talked about it. I will provide more information on list. Will include on agenda for next week.
Last revised 26 October, 2001 by Judy Brewer