EPUB 3 Working Group A11y Telco — Minutes

Date: 2021-09-23

See also the Agenda and the IRC Log

Attendees

Present: Avneesh Singh, Wendy Reid, Ben Schroeter, George Kerscher, John Foliot, Gregorio Pellegrino, Matt Garrish, Bill Kasdorf, Charles LaPierre, Murata Makoto

Regrets: Tzviya Siegman, Matthew Chan

Guests:

Chair: Avneesh Singh

Scribe(s): Wendy Reid

Content:

Avneesh Singh: Before we begin, we have some important meetings coming up
… we have TPAC and DAISY meetings
… we’ll likely not have any regular meetings in October, next meeting in November

1. EPUB Accessibility FAQ

See github issue #1817.

Avneesh Singh: let’s talk about the first agenda item
… Matt raised this issue yesterday

See github issue #1819.

Matt Garrish: Something I bumped into while reviewing the document
… we still have a reference to the old IDPF github repo
… it’s basically that we need to move this document if we want to still reference
… I think it’s ok, I’ve discussed this with Ivan
… there’s a way to keep this in Respec without formally publishing
… bigger problem is #1819, what do we do about the optimization registry
… the first one is easier, we publish it and update the reference
… the registry issue is more complicated
… it’s basically a list of optimization standards
… what do we do with it?
… it’s kind of process heavy, if there’s a way to add a registry as a W3C registry
… do we move it
… I don’t know what is the best approach

Avneesh Singh: My understanding is that we don’t want to give W3C status to any of these
… I would say an HTML page sitting in the repo would be find for now

Matt Garrish: Should we still call it a registry?

Avneesh Singh: Yes the name can cause confusion
… we shouldn’t call it a registry

Matt Garrish: Ok we’ll move them away, and change the name

John Foliot: I just wanted to point out, there is a way to host notes
… the WAI domain has many
… they’re hosted in the TR space, but as non-normative notes
… We have many for user requirements and things like that
… making content accessible is one of them
… tagged as working group notes

John Foliot: https://www.w3.org/TR/coga-usable/

Matt Garrish: That was my original proposal
… Ivan had suggested that we might not need a full note
… I don’t have a strong opinion
… we can do them as notes
… do they need formal standing

Bill Kasdorf: how useful is the information in them?

Matt Garrish: it’s a general FAQ and some documents
… once we get into note territory our hands are a little more bound
… we’d need a WG
… to vote and approve

John Foliot: Would it not be under the EPUB WG

Matt Garrish: If it’s still running

Avneesh Singh: WG Notes have process

John Foliot: That seems like a positive

Avneesh Singh: These particular notes are more challenging ownership wise

George Kerscher: We did these when we were establishing the baseline of EPUB accessibility
… we didn’t have KB back them
… could we add them into the KB
… the registry is just a list of optimized standards for various things.
… It’s just informative
… I don’t know if that could also be an item in the KB

Avneesh Singh: I would say for the list of optimized specifications if it’s in the KB it’s ok
… the FAQs for the a11y spec is more tied up with EPUB Accessibility

Matt Garrish: Agreed
… we have documents like this in the repo right now
… it’s more lightweight, but we’ve published notes for other things
… it’s not quite a specification, it’s not quite guidance, it’s more background information

Avneesh Singh: If we want to keep it in the epub-specs repo, a wiki might work

Gregorio Pellegrino: We have the KB, is it worth it to do all of this work?

Matt Garrish: This is going back to design decisions
… why we use schema
… why things don’t overlap with WCAG, it’s not something we can farm out, it’s very specific to the EPUB accessibility doc
… it’s not obsolete, but it’s getting there
… the spec has been out long enough now

Avneesh Singh: Let’s propose to put it on a wiki in the epub-specs space
… it will not conflict with official notes

Proposed resolution: Move EPUB Accessibility FAQ to wiki on epub specs repo (Avneesh Singh)

Wendy Reid: +1

Matt Garrish: +1

Bill Kasdorf: +1

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1

Charles LaPierre: +1

George Kerscher: +1

Ben Schroeter: +1

John Foliot: +1

Resolution #1: Move EPUB Accessibility FAQ to wiki on epub specs repo

2. Add technique explaining WCAG 2.4.6 passes for all publication headings

See github issue #1810.

Avneesh Singh: Next one is also from mgarrish

Matt Garrish: A question that’s sat in the back of my head
… all headings must describe the topic of their section
… which doesn’t quite make sense for things like novels
… what’s their purpose and role
… I opened the issue and was confirmed that they SCs don’t quite cover all cases, it just needs to be a descriptive identifier for the content that follows
… it’s kind of problematic, also lumped with labels
… it’s too big a change for WCAG 2
… good for WCAG 3 where we can discuss further
… should we document this
… how does WCAG apply to EPUB
… it’s a known issue with the wording
… not to be concerned with the heading missing a topic
… fits in with our techniques MO

George Kerscher: Even numbers are fine

Matt Garrish: That’s what threw me off, there’s context in numbers, but it’s not descriptive of the content
… it’s going after a different problem, headings that don’t match the content
… do we want to document it

Avneesh Singh: I think documenting it is good
… one of the purposes of techniques is to explain how WCAG applies

Proposed resolution: Add explainer for WCAG 2.1 SC 2.4.6 in EPUB a11y techniques (Avneesh Singh)

Matt Garrish: +1

Wendy Reid: +1

Gregorio Pellegrino: +1

Bill Kasdorf: +1

Murata Makoto: +1

George Kerscher: +1

Resolution #2: Add explainer for WCAG 2.1 SC 2.4.6 in EPUB a11y techniques

3. Informative note for Unicode in EPUB accessibility

See github issue #1790.

Avneesh Singh: Next topic, unicode
… I was thinking we should have an informative note in the spec that people should be using UTF-8 because it’s required in EPUB and good for accessibility
… when I speak to people about this, EPUB a11y is the first thing people see
… come to EPUB core later
… unicode is important for several languages
… to solve that query, put in a note
… Matt has mentioned not knowing where to put it
… I’m not strong on this idea, but if we can find a spot, it would be nice

George Kerscher: Does EPUBCheck check for UTF-8?

Matt Garrish: Yes

George Kerscher: Isn’t this an internationalization issue?

Avneesh Singh: Yes

Bill Kasdorf: and it’s fundamental to XML

George Kerscher: I think it would be good to have it mentioned somewhere

Avneesh Singh: Somewhere is the question

Matt Garrish: That’s actually what I was going to ask about
… Makoto has asked for this as well, there’s regional specific requirements
… maybe add a section on internationalization
… there’s some sections on WCAG and EPUB, and there’s the techniques
… we don’t clearly say use unicode anywhere
… it would be an outlier
… if we want to add a section on i18n, and various standards relating to that, that’s one approach

John Foliot: As far as W3C process, horizontal reviews need to be done
… UTF-8 is a requirement in EPUB?
… it needs to be captured somewhere
… if this is something we can discuss in our meeting with Janina

Murata Makoto: I like Matt’s idea about introducing a section on i18n
… if that section is introduced, I will have some things to include
… TTS of Japanese documents containing ruby
… DAISY has created a wiki, and Richard Ishida is working on a note
… i18n WG knows ruby well
… I pinged him again yesterday about this
… it’s not specific to EPUB, but to HTML

Avneesh Singh: So Matt, if you want a section on i18n, techniques is probably a better place?

Matt Garrish: I don’t know if it’s a technique
… it might need to be in the spec
… specific problems and how to solve them would go in the techniques
… the core a11y spec has the links to WCAG
… a brief explainer

Avneesh Singh: That sounds like the way forward
… a paragraph in the core document
… and techniques

Matt Garrish: It could even go into the overview
… I don’t think it needs to be elaborate

Avneesh Singh: Action item to draft something and then we can review

4. Normative references to a specification of metadata properties are needed.

See github issue #1799, #1767.

See github pull request #1818, #1815.

Avneesh Singh: These are the reminders, there are some PRs with requests to review

Avneesh Singh: there’s some further discussion on zero-tolerance for a11y review, please provide comments
… AOB?

George Kerscher: Asking for comments for these on GH?

Avneesh Singh: The PRs need review, and the last one is an issue, please provide comments on that

George Kerscher: Personally, the approach being taken for discovery seems ok

Avneesh Singh: There’s more emails

Charles LaPierre: I was just looking at the editor’s note FXL techniques
… diff and preview have errors

Charles LaPierre: Add editor’s note mentioning the fxl techniques #1818

Charles LaPierre: https://github.com/w3c/epub-specs/pull/1818

Wendy Reid: It’s already merged, so there’s no “diff”

John Foliot: matt, FWIW, another emergent spec with a section related to security and privacy. Note that this WG are in ongoing discussions with i18n folks at W3C. See: https://w3c.github.io/personalization-semantics/content/index.html#privacy-and-security-considerations

Matt Garrish: Just look at the file changes

Avneesh Singh: Let’s continue discussion on GH
… APA call times will be finalized, and I will send them to the mailing list
… see you all in the 3.3 call tomorrow
… have a nice day!

5. Resolutions