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Independent User Interface (Indie UI) Working Group Public Page

Announcements

26 June 2014: IndieUI: User Context First Public Working Draft published. Comments should be made by 27 June 2014.

29 May 2014: IndieUI: Events Working Draft published. Comments should be made by 1 August 2014.

22 April 2014: Requirements for IndieUI: Events 1.0 and IndieUI: User Context 1.0 published. Comments should be made by 23 May 2014.

Comments are accepted at any time even if the formal comment period has expired. Comments received on a draft that is about to be republished may be treated as comments on the subsequent draft.

Meetings

The IndieUI Working Group meets bi-weekly on Wednesdays from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm Eastern Time (UTC 22:00 to 23:00 during Standard Time; UTC 21:00 to 22:00 during Daylight Time) via teleconference bridge: +1 617.761.6200 passcode 46343 ("INDIE"). To find what time this is in your region, please consult the world clock time zone converter. Please read "User Instructions for the W3C Zakim Teleconference Bridge".

We use IRC during meetings and for discussion during the week. This channel is only for members of the Working Group. IRC server: irc.w3.org:6665, channel #indie-ui. More info about irc is available from IRC help.

The IndieUI Working Group met face to face on 26 and 27 October 2014 in Santa Clara, California.

Current Work

The Indie UI Working Group conducts its work in a joint task force with the Web Events Working Group—the Independent User Interface Task Force. This allows members of both Working Groups to participate in the work. Members of the Indie UI WG are automatically added to the task force. Members of the Web Events may request to join the task force. Note it is necessary to join either the Indie UI WG or the Web Events WG in order to join this task force.

The Indie UI WG is working on the following specifications:

• Indie UI: Events 1.0, an abstraction between device-specific user interaction events and inferred user intent such as scroll, activate, etc. This provides an intermediate layer between device- and modality-specific user interaction events, and the basic user interface functionality used by Web applications. Indie UI: Events focuses on granular user interface interactions such as scrolling the view, canceling an action, changing the value of a user input widget, selecting a range, placing focus on an object, etc. Implementing platforms will take modality-specific user input, user idiosyncratic heuristics to determine the specific corresponding Indie UI event, and send that to the Web application (along with details of the modality-specific input such as mouse or keyboard events should applications wish to process it).
• Indie UI: User Context 1.0, a set of properties and methods related to the environmental context of a specific user, and a vehicle to access them to facilitate a Web application's ability to adapt to the user's needs. This is meant to provide information about whether a user is using a screen reader, screen magnifier, or other Assistive Technology, and to expose relevant user settings, allowing optimal adaptation of the Web application's user interface. This has important privacy implications because the information exposed may imply facts about the user's disability, which can be socially or legally problematic if misused. These issues are important to resolve and the group will consult with the Privacy Interest Group and Web Application Security Working Group to help ensure these issues are fully addressed.

Publications

The Indie UI WG periodically publishes formal drafts of its specifications to the W3C Technical Reports page. These documents progress through a series of stages (see How WAI Develops Accessibility Guidelines through the W3C Process) and the group seeks and responds to comments on these stable versions.

Indie UI publications are also available as editors' drafts, which may be more current but are less stable than Technical Reports. Please note that Editors' Drafts:

• Are updated in place frequently and do not represent an unchanging snapshot (the source repository may be used to access prior versions);
• May not be up-to-date with recent Working Group decisions;
• Do not necessarily represent Working Group consensus, that is, the drafts may include proposals that the Working Group has not agreed on;
• May change frequently without public notification;
• Include "Editorial notes" that are intended for public review and comment;
• Include internal "Todo" notes and areas that are not ready for review.

The following formal publications are available from the Indie UI WG:

• Indie UI: Events 1.0
  • Current Editors' Draft of Indie UI: Events 1.0
  • Current Technical Report of Indie UI: Events 1.0
• Indie UI: User Context 1.0
  • Current Editors' Draft of Indie UI: User Context 1.0
  • Current Technical Report of Indie UI: User Context 1.0
• Requirements for IndieUI: Events 1.0 and IndieUI: User Context 1.0
  • Current Editors' Draft of Requirements for IndieUI: Events 1.0 and IndieUI: User Context 1.0
  • Current Technical Report of Requirements for IndieUI: Events 1.0 and IndieUI: User Context 1.0

Editors' sources for the above specifications are maintained in the W3C IndieUI GitHub repository. GitHub users can watch this repository and send pull requests.

About the Indie UI WG

Contacts

• Indie UI WG Chair: Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>
• Indie UI WG W3C Staff Contact: Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>

Charter

The charter of the working group outlines the goals, work methods, and requirements for participation. This activity is conducted by the W3C as part of its Web Accessibility Initiative.

Participation

The participation page provides details about how to join the group.

To follow the work of the WG without joining, the following resources are available:

• Review formal and editors' drafts of publications;
• Submit public comments on current work and review existing comments.

Mailing Lists

• public-indie-ui@w3.org is used by members of the Indie UI WG and the Independent User Interface Task Force to discuss current work. The public-indie-ui archives are publicly readable.
• public-indie-ui-comments@w3.org is available to file public comments on IndieUI deliverables, or commenters may file an issue in W3C Bugzilla. The public-indie-ui-comments archives are publicly readable.

Infrastructure

The Indie UI WG uses the following tools to facilitate its work:

• The wiki is publicly readable and can be edited by members.
• Issues and actions on members are recorded in the publicly readable Tracker.
• Formal public comments and responses are tracked in the comment tracker.
• Web-based surveys (WBS) are used to collect feedback and test consensus.
• The editors' source and test resources are stored in the GitHub repository.
• Issues are tracked in W3C Bugzilla using the product "IndieUI".

Patent Disclosures

W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent.