Copenhagen meeting:
Charter redraft
Evaluation Suite
HB - At UAWG meeting yesterday, no significant comments were received
on UAAG. He provided a contact list to Ian Jacobs. Group feels happy about
the progress that has been made and looking forward to a short rest.
JB - By way of explanation: Ian Jacobs is lead. Proposed recommendation
review period closed yesterday.
HS - In Netherlands a Web portal, 10000 schools are linked to it, invited
his team to provide a workshop on Web access, including ATAG since they are
developing their own content management system, and would like to know if
anyone has done presentations on ATAG?
JB - Carlos Velasco has had experience in this area and Henk should contact
him to see if he is available. Also Matt May, Jan Richards.
HBJ - Comment: Next week at Techshare Conference in Birmingham there will be a joint presentation between RNIB and a commercial company on a content management system. Helle provided the following information to the mailing list:
The presentation at Techshare is: Stellent: an accessible automated web content management system, By Hugh Huddy, best practice Officer: Accessible Information, RNIB and Stephen Morton, Pre Sales Consultant, Stellent.
Full programme: http://www.rnib.org.uk/techshare/programme.htm
HBJ: Update: Also just came back from a Danish group making guidelines,
and main point was how to make guidelines for evaluation web sites. Decision
to start by translating Evaluating Doc, but start with just Preliminary Review
section, because they don't want to frighten people with volume of information.
She hopes to have whole document translated but will only promote first
part.
JB - lets talk more about that in item 3.
HBJ - also will take the checklist for the guidelines and look at what is
happening in the Netherlands.
JB - this week took an action item to talk to other WGs regarding "Techniques
for Evaluation and Repair" and all would like that document to progress.
HBJ - would like to have some guidance to use for setting up a contract
with a Web development company... this is a big problem for Government agencies,
don't know how to describe in the contract what they mean by accessibility
and she would be grateful if anyone could send samples.
AA - follow-up for Henk, have you seen the University of Toronto's IE-Tutor - the accessible on-line content management system for education. Still in formation, but a good start. Andrew will forward reference. Update: successful workshop with 20 people from state gov in Brisbane, using Canadian approach "Common user experience" with a lot of accessibility into that interface. Attended a meeting of AusTrade (fed department) talking to ICT development officers also E-learning companies, so he will have a lot of work to do in the coming year.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/2002/1107-agenda.html#agn
JB - 2/3 of minutes in, rest coming, then need assembly. Would Libby
or Alistair be willing to do the assembly?
LC - I will
AG - if Libby needs help, I will help.
JB - meeting seemed to go well, very good hosting from Helle, her organization
and IBM. Thank you Helle!
We went over some of the deliverables under development. About half of
attendees weren't current EOWG members.
JB - Had a roundtable for what is happening in Europe.
HB - is there any attempt to get a common EU approach to accessibility?
JB - there already is a lot of harmony (more than in US) - an existing resolution
on guidelines.
JB - Discussion with EDEAN a network of organizations promoting accessibility of information technology.
JB - Then went through review teams and gallery. Had discussions about
range of methods of review (15-min version to in-depth versions over period
of days). Had lot of people volunteer to help, with four people to do prescreening.
JB - On Friday, did a discussion about training exchange: very interesting
for all concerned. This was about best practices for trainers.
HB - would this be captured in a document? Many people would benefit (especially
those who couldn't attend such an event) from such presentations.
JB - having difficulty figuring out how the full experience could be captured
in print. Opined that video taping the sessions would be an "interesting
concept".
HB - could you ask the trainers in the audience to report on what they liked
best in other styles?
JB - did a bit of that.
JB - there was some discussion of how to use evaluation document in a Quality Assurance process in a company, and decided to add a comment about it to the Implementation suite.
LC - thought it was quite validating to see how different countries are working from the same guidelines. Henk and Eric did a wonderful presentation on their processes.
JB - asked Henk if we are using the form-based evaluation for reviews
is it something WAI can use publicly?
HS - what we use is based on WAI anyway so there is no problem with WAI
using it.
see http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/charter2
JB - charter expired at end of last month, not a crisis, but we have to
get on with renewal. Discuss changes (if any are necessary), then a few internal
W3C process steps after redrafting. She has some recommendations for a few
tweaks she thinks might be necessary.
HS - this call is illegal then!
JB - W3C is getting stricter, but isn't worried the police will come in
on the call.
HS - wondering if harmonization of guidelines is one of our goals under
scope?
JB - will add it under scope.
JB - Suggests both taking out strategies and leaving it in. No decision.
BM - Do you want editorial comments now?
JB - No. Send such to her via e-mail.
AA - what is "Web community"? Do we really mean "community" writ larger.
JB - we could say "to Educate a variety of audiences"
JB - three main points now. Any comments. See Henk's comment in Mission,
above. Any other thoughts? What about the third bullet.
AA - he had questions about this.
JB - maybe "promote development of networks in different areas".
SH - thinks the bullet is OK.
KA - there is a word missing from all of the bullets she would like to
see: Awareness, promoting it, etc.
JB - ok
HB - there is no mention about our role in promoting internal W3C awareness
(i.e.to other working groups).
JB - this is technically the role of Protocols and Formats. Harvey do you
have any suggestions?
HB - the Technical Plenary in Boston in March would be a good opportunity.
JB - at that meeting we could invite other WG's to strategize with them
on how to do outreach on their areas as well. This activity could be added
in scope or dependencies about other W3C groups (besides WAI). Or did you
mean we should proselytize to other W3C WG's?
HB - aren't we the only EO group in W3C?
JB - Not any more.
HB - we could be a good model.
JB - will look for ways to make it clearer that we will coordinate with
other EO's in W3C (to help or coordinate strategies) but not add "in-reach"
on Accessibility for W3C (which is a P&F activity).
HB - it is not clear to him that P&F is not just a WAI group.
JB - P&F encompases a divers group of people in technical areas of W3C
and external groups.
CC - really likes adding "promoting" particularly in bullet 2 and 3, where appropriate.
MRK - important to think about adding mention of usability.
JB - add usability, internationalization, etc. to dependencies.
JB - section needs some updating, e.g. Fact-sheets are in fact FAQs.
AA - "Fact-sheets" would have to be changed in Scope item 2 as well.
JB - should I just update it and we can discuss it at a future meeting?
Consensus: Yes.
JB - We already commented on this in previous discussion today.
BM - curious about word "dependencies". We are not really dependent, or
on whom are we dependent?
JB - terminology required by W3C process. True it is not the same as a
"technical dependency" but if there is any way to improve on it, please let
her know.
JB - will recommend another 2-year hitch, probably starting in December
JB - fascinating to see (e.g. at the Copenhagen meeting) how much in the
public domain is based on WAI work.
SH - note that "Web community" phrase shows up here too.
JB - How to fix? Including W3C organizations, others as well.
SH - if the Web is more accessible it is an indication of our success.
JB - risky to suggest that one working group is responsible for the success.
Would suggest leaving it implicit rather than explicit.
HS - tracking increased harmonization of guidelines would be a good idea.
E.g., adoption of WAI guidelines by policy or law.
JB - not sure to measure how much of that uptake is caused, or influenced,
by EOWG.
CL - for example, Government of Canada probably took it up not because of
EO but because of WCAG itself.
JB - maybe as a secondary, second tier, result, but mention it would be
more difficult to measure.
HS - when we add the word awareness in section 2 scope then there shouldbe
something about awareness in this section as well.
JB, others. Agree
JB - will put it in
JB - will try to fit something in about harmonization too.
Question: how does EO communicate through IG?
JB - there was a plan for a once-a-month update mailing list but that was
difficult because of random scheduling, so next idea was a WAI-Announce list.
Many people have dropped from IG because of volume and would miss announcements
on IG.
CC - do we need to specify the WAI announce list?
JB - we could put it in as a possibility.
JB - any comments?
JB - suggests we look at it because of FAQ's to be developed for new recommendations.
SH - do we need anything because of the WAI Review and Gallery projects?
JB - any suggestions?
SH - get W3C lawyers involved.
JB - will draft something.
CC - second sentence too long, suggests breaking it in two or three.
HB - people have to be made aware that messages to lists are published in
public archives. Has come up in other groups.
JB - doesn't think we need to talk about it in the Charter, but a good point
in genera.
JB - is supposed to be superceded by actual section in the W3C process
document. We have rarely used a very strict process in this group (it is
different from developing executable code, for example). Will add a link
to the new process section. Any comments?
None.
JB - minimum time (4 hours per week) includes phone time, working on times,
but is frankly less than other W3C groups. Should link to W3C process for
good standing for working groups. May have to increase rigorousness of membership
granting, because of the "industry consortium" mandate of W3C - most participants
are supposed to be from primarily member organizations. WAI is heavily loaded
with invited experts and this may cause some (internal) difficulty if stricter
processes are not followed. Any comments?
None.
JB - this section is very out of date. Close to having someone in one EO position, but unlikely a second person. Will update it as information becomes available.
JB - All W3C charters are undergoing some change with respect to IPR. Not sure how it applies to an informational group like ours, but something will have to be done. She will have to review it herself before discussing it further.
JB - Any other questions about Charter as a whole?
HBJ - is there a link to how to use this stuff?
JB - a link on the page to "How to use W3C documents". Thinks that a FAQ
would be good as well.
JB - will do a draft incorporating the changes we discussed and will review draft at next meeting.
JB - has done a lot of reformatting to bring the navigation of the documents
in line: see http://www.w3.org/WAI/impl/.
Many of the pages have been updated, but not all.
MRK - is it possible to give the sub-suite products in a list under the
headings?
JB - tried something like that previously, but couldn't get agreement on
how to do it.
HBJ - we might have discussed this before, but in Navigation bar you have
the link to Evaluating Sites, but it goes to something confusing - suite
or document.
JB - there is some discrepancies in titling and labeling that she can look
at.
MRK - need to emphasize ability for people to comment to editors on document
issues.
JB - there is a link to editors.
JB - are people concerned about anything?
HBJ - not very concerned and wants to get it out, but are there links to
all the other resources?
JB - not yet, and not all of the previous comments have been integrated,
and she hopes to get to them in the next while. One of the things we discussed
in Copenhagen was to break out information more clearly for the annotated
list of WAI resources. We could do the same thing with this.
SH - if you set up a menu page for the suite (e.g. like the Training Resource
page) is this what you were thinking?
JB - No. Do people think a menu page should be added?
BM - is "Evaluating Web sites for accessibility" the main page for this?
JB - Yes.
BM - it is confusing depending on where you come in.
JB - there are parallel resource suites and we decided to leave links to
parallel resources even though the linking becomes somewhat confusing for
some.
MRK - would use same kind of menu, but make them expandable in place to
show sub-suite documents.
JB - not likely be able to redo training navigation suite navigation at
this point.
BM - would like an intro page explaining how suites interrelate.
JB - a good idea (maybe the WAI resources page would be a good place) but
we are not ready to tie them all together because of the varying levels of
development.
JB - will look at bolding all suite name, stabilize position of suite name
(while collapsing the subpages when in a different one) ,make the WAI resource
page explicit about the sub pages as well, and finally make the navigation
bars more complete and better (later). Any disagreement? None.
Postponed to future meeting.
JB - need future discussion of Business Case suite. Andrew will be contacted.
JB - people involved in Gallery work will likely hear from Judy shortly.
Possibly Friday 22, but no meeting on November 29 due to US Thanksgiving holiday