[Accessibility] Web Site Update and Options

Gregory J. Rosmaita oedipus at hicom.net
Fri Aug 17 17:28:58 PDT 2007


1. Proposed Open A11y Specifications Index Page:
* http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/temp/a11y/a11yspecs_index-v1.html
* http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/temp/a11y/a11yspecs_index-v2.html
* http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/temp/a11y/a11yspecs_index-v3.html
* http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/temp/a11y/a11yspecs_index-v4.html
(personally, i think the flow of versions 3 and 4 the most logical)


2. Main Open A11y Emailing List Index Options: TABLE versus DL):
* http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/temp/a11y/table-vs-dl.html


3. Kbd SIG Web Space

META-QUESTION:
what is the A11y WG's position on the naming convention which 
should be used for the keyboard SIG:

   * mixed case: Accessibility/Kbd
   * all caps: Accessibility/KBD
   * all lower case: Accessibility/kbd
   * expanded: Accessibility/Keyboard

3A) Is there an official description of the KBD SIG?
One is needed for:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Accessibility/Kbd

3B) is there a pre-existing KBD FAQ?
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Accessibility/Kbd/FAQ

3C) is there an official KBD Overview? one is needed for
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Accessibility/Kbd/Overview

3D) i do not know the schedule of the kbd SIG conference calls, 
nor do i how much archival materials (agenda, meetings, audio) 
the Kbd SIG has available for the Kdb Meetings page:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Accessibility/Kbd/Meetings


4. the I/O SIG

4A) is there a need for me to create a sub-site for the io SIG?
what is the A11y WG's position on the naming convention which 
should be used for the I/O SIG:

   * mixed case: Accessibility/IO
   * all caps: Accessibility/io


5. Lingering Issues

as you may have noticed, i have used the logo in the index page 
for a11yspecs which i asked you to review earlier...  now that the 
site and its services have migrated to portland, oregon, our request 
to get the a11y logo placed immediately next to the linux-foundation's 
boilerplate graphic-as-hyperlink, which points to the LF's main 
entrance, into the wrappre that surrounds a11y web-space...  

given that, should i push to make the A11y logo (which will be the 
second link if the page is approached linearly/serially) a "skip 
directly to content" link, allowing users to jump from the top of the 
page directly into the a11y portion of the page?

also, i need someone to provide me with a long description for the 
logo, so that i can point the longdesc attribute value to a description
of the logo (besides, i'm curious to know what it looks like!)

so, to summarize Issue 1:

  1) do we want the logo to serve as a skip to content link?

  2) do we have text for a long description wiki page?

  3) since ALT cannot accept "rich" markup -- or any markup at
     all, should i ask that the entire graphic be encased in 
     an ABBR so as to provide an expansion for those unfamiliar 
     with the convention?  that could have the unintended 
     consequence of masking the ALT text, so the abbreviation 
     could be implicitly expanded thus:

            alt="Accessibility (A11y) Working Group"

     which leaves the matter of conveying to users that the 
     logo also serves as a "skip to content" link; i could 
     append a "title" attribute to the hyperlink definition (the 
     A element) but most screen-readers offer only the following:

           * apeak ALT
           * speak TITLE
           * speak longest

     for graphically defined hyperlinks; onFocus or onHover in 
     almost every browser expose the contents of the "title"
     attribute as a ToolTip, save for MSIE, which exposes the 
     content of the ALT attribute as a ToolTip onMouseOver, 
     onHover, and onFoucus (for example, routing a virtual 
     cursor to the object with focus to expose the ToolTip so 
     that it can be read to the user)

     the more i write about it, the more i'm convinced that i 
     need to mock-up the template using a variety of strategies,
     so that we can choose the most interoperable implementation.
     i don't anticipate the requested changes to be effected 
     until the dust settles from the migration of all of the 
     linux-foundation's site's content and tools to portland, 
     which gives us some time (the implementor who agreed to 
     add ALT text to the "news" and "events" tabs in the LF 
     wrapper is apparently MIA)

thoughts?  suggestions?  comments?  contributions?  criticism, 
anyone?

gregory.


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