[Accessibility] Minutes for April 6

[Bill Haneman]

john goldthwaite wrote:

>4/6/2005   Accessibility Workgroup Meeting
>					
>Gunnar Schmidt
>Bill Haneman		
>Matthew Wilcox
>Janina Sajka	
>John Goldthwaite
>George Kraft
>Larry Weiss
>Peter Korn
>Peter Brunet
>Randy Horwitz
>Andreas Gonzales
>Earl Johnson
>
>Minutes from 3/31/05 approved as posted.
>
>Brief items- Voter registration form is up and the
>period for registration has started.  Bill motioned
>that we should cull our list of group members.  
>
It wasn't actually me that mentioned this. I don't know who did; Janina 
seemed to think that it was me, but I don't remember suggesting it.

>Should
>that be a formal motion and do we need to discuss it? 
>Anyone have any problems?  No objections.  I have a
>questions- if someone has not participated enough
>should we allow people who don’t quite make the
>normative standards can we have a process to allow
>them to qualify.
>Doug - we said that those people could contact you and
>election committee could make a decision in those
>cases.
>Janina- George and I made a lot of edits to the web
>page about the conference.  John, please send your
>notes to George so that he can post them.  If anyone
>has other notes send them to George.
>The freedesktop people have posted a list of
>requirements for the audio requirements.  Would other
>people like copies of that?  How closely should we
>track this?  If they are going to set out a set of
>requirements ...  
>The question has come up about a next meeting.  I
>don’t have any news about funding. George has
>recommended that we go to Freedesktop.  We wouldn’t
>have funding for everyone to the meeting so we need to
>decide who would be best to attend.  
>George- from this workgroup we could talk about the
>finalization of the Keyboard specs.  These are the
>specs’ and these are the tests were are thinking
>about.  The GAP group could talk about what they are
>doing
>Bill- I don’t believe I would have company sponsorship
>for that trip.  
>Janina- so we would need to find some funding.
>Bill- well, partial funding. Dates?
>Willy-	July 17 and 18th for desktop developers
>
>Janina- so there is utility for the community to see
>what we have ready and about ready for approval.  We
>can explain to developers how you do accessibility. 
>That will help me as I’m talk to the funders.  We’ll
>try too get some resolution on it this month so we can
>make some decisions.  We have a spec coming on
>Keyboard and perhaps one on AT-SPI later this year. 
>How do we explain that complying with the Keyboard
>spec is not the same as accessibility.  We will
>actually have tests and be able to perform validation
>against the test.
>
>Peter- we can say that this is a minimum.  If your
>system doesn’t have this, then don’t even try to make
>AccessX work.  
>Janina- this reminds me of the W3C WAI content
>guidelines- various levels of check points.  You need
>to do these for single A which are essential.  You can
>do things for triple A that are helpful but it doesn’t
>help with the essential single A’s.  
>Bill- rather than talk about levels of conformance, we
>should explain what we do cover and avoid saying
>things about making the desktop accessible.
>
i.e. avoid using the term 'accessibility' in an unqualified setting, and 
use terms like 'assistive technology enabled' or similar instead.

>  Keyboard
>requirements for accessibility readiness.  We’re not
>saying that the desktop is accessibility.
>Peter- it’s a statement of a level of minimal
>compliance.
>Bill-   if somebody has kdb and access library and was
>running with software that doesn’t use them, the user
>will not get any benefit in access.  We should
>distance ourselves from accessibility claims.
>Janina- I kind of agree but we are the Accessibility
>work group.  We need to list the kind of users that
>will benefit.  If the package is included, we have to
>add the cavet that application must make use of the
>features before end users will benefit.
>Bill- we need to put a disclaimer that says we do not
>certify applications for platforms.
>  
>
I specifically said that I thought mentioning 'the kind of users who 
will benefit' was a bad idea, as it strongly implies end-user 
accessibility. I felt we should avoid making statements about end-user 
accessibility, except to make it clear that ]we/our current proposed 
standards] did not certify same.

>Peter- what if we say it is a minimum infrastructure
>for accessibility but it doesn’t mean applications
>will be accessible.  Have something at the top of the
>page that is is about infrastructure, these are
>minimum foundation building blocks required for
>access.
>Bill- if someone references our spec., if that’s all
>they say, the reader needs to know that this is not
>the whole story.  
>
>George- set up a meeting with Jim Zemlin and Andrew
>Josey, director of certification for the Open group. 
>Let them know that this is the timeline for things to
>be handed up to the FSG board of directors.  Let them
>have time to think about it and get back to us with a
>counter proposal.
>
>Janina- we need to make some statement.  It will be
>about Keyboard now.  It will be something we say about
>all our standards.  We need to put up some suggested
>wording as a strawman and we can tweak it until we get
>it right.  At some point someone will sell based on
>our specification, which should be a good thing.  It
>is a useful opportunity, we have this toolkit and we
>have made sure that we support these spec’s.  There
>are aspects for the customer that we need to think
>through.  It needs to be a well crafted statement and
>carry a message about what it does and does not do for
>the consumer. Hadn’t thought about a discussion with
>the FSG board.
>George- when they take a standard, they develop a
>product standard.  That is what the FSG’s product is. 
>It costs them money to set them up since they have to
>get the lawyers to check it and package it.
>Janina- we’ve got our spec, but who can claim
>conformance.  Just because xkb, it doesn’t mean that —
>is compliant
>
>George
>Bill- the standard is based on the presence of a
>feature set.  If you are looking for a particular
>library and it’s there, that doesn’t tell you if other
>packages on the system use the library or use it
>correctly.  We haven’t pushed out to the end user.  It
>has been targeted at whether the application will run
>on the platform, program links with library and will
>run.  Now we’re getting to whether the user experience
>is correct.  The AT-SPI and I/O are about services but
>there are ways the user can access the services.
>  
>
Strike the last part 'but there are ways...' What I was saying is that 
we do NOT say anything about whether the user can access the services, 
in our current investigation/spec-activity areas.

>Janina- we’re not the first to introduce the user
>aspects, Internationalization also relates to user
>experience.  
>George- I17n makes sure that the libraries work
>correctly and that things like grep can handle a
>multi-byte character.  It doesn’t guarantee that an
>application will perform correctly.  It will take a
>while between having certified accessible systems and
>having certified applications.
>  
>
i.e. the existing i18n specs don't addess the user-experience end of the 
bargain.

>Peter- we don’t get to a end goal until we have ..
>What works in the process.
>Bill- here are the N steps required for an accessible
>desktop.
>  
>
No, that was Peter.

>Bill- it puts into context of what is required
>Peter- it makes it clear that we’re not walking away
>from the final outcome.  We’re making it clear that
>there are multiple steps and this is step 1.
>Andreas- It is an alternative interface.  If someone
>could do a standard for gui development, I’d be
>surprised.  This is going to be a moving target.
>Peter- accessibility is different depending on the
>user.  It make no sense to say that X is accessible. 
>It will be accessible to a user with a given set of
>abilities.  
>
>It is a negative test, if you don’t have it, don’t bid
>on it.
>Bill- it’s necessary but not sufficient
>Peter- necessary but far from sufficient
>
>Bill- have we exhausted this?
>  
>
Peter asked if we were done, I think.

>Peter- there is an NCITS study group on accessibility
>that has started meeting and they are currently
>gathering the international standards.  They are
>having a meeting next month in Sheffield, England.	
>Janina- It’s actually next week.  I’m trying to get a
>flight to attend.  I’ve got to be in Stockholm
>Tuesday.  I’m getting quoted about $1600 to get to
>Sheffield..
>Willy- try Manchester
>Peter- try RyanAir, they service a small airport
>outside of Stockholm and Manchester.
>
>Others on the NCITS committee- Greg Vanderheiden, Judy
>Brewer, Gottfried Zimmerman, Leddie Neville, plus
>industry types.											
>Janina- I think we can have a meeting next week but
>I’m not sure what my hosts in Denmark have planned. 
>Would you want to meet without me?				
>Peter- there is nothing burning but we’d like to hear
>about your two meetings.			
>Janina- expect a email Tuesday about whether we’ll
>have a meeting.  Thanks everyone, great meeting!
>
>
> 
>
>
>		
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