EPUB 3 Working Group A11y Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-08-26

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Avneesh Singh, Wendy Reid, Gregorio Pellegrino, John Foliot, Matt Garrish, Bill Kasdorf, George Kerscher

Regrets: Ben Schroeter, Tzviya Siegman

Guests:

Chair: Avneesh Singh

Scribe(s): Gregorio Pellegrino

Content:

1. Continue discussion on is 0 tolerance for accessibility conformance practical?

See github issue #1767.

Avneesh Singh: we had a long discussion about this issue during last call
… Charles suggested to use a string “significantly” conforms to
… but then we had some comments on the issue

John Foliot: I like the idea to use “significantly conforms to”
… I the VPAT you can describe it, to tell that perfect is a goal
… but achieve it is complicated
… in the USA an accessibility problem can goes to a legal issue

Matt Garrish: I think it’s ok for a publisher to tell it in the accessibility summary
… I have concerns about writing in specs what it means to be significantly accessible

Avneesh Singh: do you mean that you can put whatever you want in the conformsTo field?

Matt Garrish: yes

John Foliot: I’m active in the Silver WG, we are working on the score system
… in conformsTo may we link so a self-published accessibility statement (for publishers)?

Matt Garrish: we have certifierReport metadata for doing this
… it’s optional

John Foliot: the conformsTo metadata instead is not optional, it is mandatory
… what about about making only one in conformsTo and certifierReport mandatory?

Matt Garrish: actually conformsTo is not mandatory

Bill Kasdorf: to end users what is most interesting is what it doesn’t conform
… it would be useful to express it

Gregorio Pellegrino: for local legislation the conformance is important
… also in metadata we don’t have ways for telling which accessibility issues are present in a document

George Kerscher: I don’t think we should get out from Silver

John Foliot: +1 to George

John Foliot: WCAG 3 is “far off” IMHO

Avneesh Singh: is it a problem to have conformsTo linking to WCAG and then in the accessibilitySummary telling that there may be issues?

George Kerscher: I think we should not worry about legal issues

John Foliot: my background tells me that think about legal risks is important
… I think that standards should not enable contractions
… I think we should balance it

George Kerscher: what does the the UX metadata guidelines tell to display when conformsTo is empty?

Avneesh Singh: nothing or unknown?

George Kerscher: so you can use certifierReport instead conformsTo

John Foliot: some certifier require to have conformsTo metadata for their certification
… so it is not “optional” for being certified
… I think we need a formal reference to link to

Matt Garrish: we can add in the specs that if partial conformance is present, then the certifierReport is mandatory
… in the conformanceTo we may use EPUB11-WCAG21-A-PARTIAL

John Foliot: +1 Matt - that’s what I personally would like to see: addressing a real-world issue with a “standardized” solution

Bill Kasdorf: +1 to Matt

John Foliot: I would also suggest to define a “standard” way to make certifier reports
… VPAT may be a solution

Matt Garrish: sure, we can recommend it

Gregorio Pellegrino: for me the certifierReport should be per publication and not for all publications

Matt Garrish: I don’t know

Bill Kasdorf: I’m favor for this approaches, but I see many VPATs that are false
… a lot of publishers are not able to read VPATs

John Foliot: to be clear, I am not advocating using a VPAT per-se, but rather look at VPATs as a model for conformance reporting

Bill Kasdorf: I think that have a report per publication is useful plus a report from the publisher telling on what they’re working

Wendy Reid: I’m concerned about telling that you must have to create a report for titles
… I think trade publishers would not use it, because it is not meaningful for retailers

Avneesh Singh: why not relaxing the report, if we have accessibilitySummary
… ?

Matt Garrish: yes, I think there are different ways to achieve it

Avneesh Singh: I think we had an excellent discussion, Matt can you now propose changes for the specs?

John Foliot: I think there are differences between prose versus machine-readable metadata
… so we should make the distinction clear in the specs
… for example telling the conformsTo MUST be an URL

Matt Garrish: we had this discussion for EPUB Accessibility 1.1
… we had issues for complex URLs
… I think that we can find a way using conformsTo plus certifierReport

2. TPAC meetings to schedule with APA and other accessibility groups. Two meetings are scheduled for now.

Avneesh Singh: we have only two meetings right now, one for public registry
… it’s not EPUB 3 specific, more on publishing community
… the other meeting is about the sound hazard propriety
… I wrote an email, they’ll discuss it in the Silver meeting
… we should be present
… I think that defining an agenda is important
… for sure we may discuss the horizontal review
… Wendy do you think are we ready in September to trigger the review?

Wendy Reid: I think so
… this week we’ll discuss accessibility issues

Avneesh Singh: great, any other items for the agenda?

Wendy Reid: I know APA wants to know more on accessibility in EPUB

Matt Garrish: I think we should ask them what the “publication profile” they’re working on means
… I don’t know the state-of-the-art, but I think it worth discussing it

John Foliot: from my point of view: WCAG 3 is looping in defining the the scoring and conformance model
… I proposed to define profiles
… my proposal was to define profiles based on WCAG tests
… as there is a subset of WCAG for PDFs
… I also proposed to public declare protocols you are using in creating content
… it’s WCAG will used by different contents, I think that defining profiles is strategic

Matt Garrish: yes, I think that something can be developed inside WCAG and something in profiles

Bill Kasdorf: Most people would consider Finnegans Wake not accessible.

Avneesh Singh: In conclusion I think we need a meeting with APA and WCAG 3.0
… do we want it together or separate?

John Foliot: I suggest separate

3. Reminder to review of EPUB Accessibility specs and techniques.

Avneesh Singh: Wendy, I can ask APA for reviewing EPUB 3.3

Wendy Reid: fine

Avneesh Singh: please file issues about EPUB Accessibility (if you have)
… we are going to finalize the document