[DRAFT] Comments on latest proposed WCAG 2.0 glossary

EOWG:

We are expecting around 30 minutes of total discussion time on Thursday on 
the prepared suggestions below. Please review the glossary items including 
"delivery unit" below and then from "normative" onwards. In addition, if 
you have any problems w/ the write-up of other items, we can briefly 
discuss those.

- Judy

[DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT] Comments on latest proposed WCAG 2.0 glossary

These comments are on the 27 Feb 2006 draft of WCAG 2.0 Appendix A. They 
are partially from EOWG discussion and partially from WAI staff review, and 
have been done [SO FAR] w/out full EOWG consensus in the interest of quick 
turnaround prior to this week's WCAG WG meeting.

Where we have no comments on your newly proposed definitions, we have not 
included those items in the list.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Regards,

- Judy

# ALTERNATE VERSION
Proposed: "version that provides all of the same information and 
functionality and is as up to date as any non-conformant content"
Problem: definition seems not to make sense unless last word "content" is 
changed to "version"
Suggestion: change last word "content" to "version?"

# ANALOG, TIME-DEPENDENT INPUT
Proposed: "Input where the outcome of the input is different depending on 
the rate of the analog movement (such as when line width varies with pen 
speed or pressure.)
         Note: This phrase is used to differentiate conditions where there 
is no known method for allowing keyboard control from those situations were 
keyboard commands can be used.
         Example: Examples of actions often done with a mouse but which can 
also be done with a keyboard include clicking, selecting, moving, sizing.
         Example: An example of something that uses analog, time-dependent 
input would be a watercolor program where stroke width and opacity is a 
function of the rate of movement (and/or pressure) of a "brush".

Problem: Needs additional explanation and/or more examples to be 
understandable. In particular, the phrase "input where the outcome of the 
input is..." seems the most un-parseable, and just did not help explain the 
term at all.
Suggestion: Perhaps the definition could be re-worded further.

#BASELINE:
Proposed:
"    set of technologies assumed to be supported by, and enabled in, user 
agents
     Note: Baseline is used by authors to determine which technologies they 
can assume are active when they build accessible content.
     Note: Baseline is used by users to determine what technologies they 
must have (and have turned on) in there user agents in order to have 
general access to websites. (If specific websites specify what they "rely 
upon" users can access those sites by simply having the technologies 
'relied upon' active in their user agents)
     Note: Organizations or Governments can use Baselines to set reasonable 
expectations (and limits on expectations) for what technologies their 
constituents will need to have supported in their user agents.
     Note: Some examples of entities that may set baselines that an author 
may have to follow include the author, a company, a customer and government 
entities."

Problem: As there is a lot of controversy around the baseline concept in 
WCAG 2.0, it may be more problematic to have a definition w/ an partial 
explanation as above -- inotherwords it may be unnecessarily alarming -- 
rather than having a more concise presentation here, with a complete 
explanation available by link.
Suggested: Use the definition exclusively without the notes. Add a pointer 
to the full discussion of baseline.

#CAPTIONS
Proposed:
"text that is typically presented and synchronized within or below a 
multimedia presentation that provides not only the dialog but also sound 
effects and sometimes speaker identification.
     Note: In some countries, the term "subtitle" is used to refer to 
dialog only and "captions" is used as the term for dialog plus sounds and 
speaker identification. In other countries, subtitle (or its translation) 
is used to refer to both."

Problem: the term "dialog" may be inaccurate; "speech" (more general) would 
be more accurate.
Suggestion: See EOWG definition after we re-word it [but we need to finish 
re-wording it!]

# CONTENT
Proposed:
"information in Web pages or other primary resources that are used by the 
user agent to generate perceivable units.
    Note: This includes the code and markup that define the structure, 
presentation, and interaction, as well as text, images, and sounds that 
convey information to the end-user.
     Editorial Note: ??? Is "perceivable units" still needed here?"

Problem: We're unclear whether you need "user agent," and don't think that 
"perceivable units" is either needed nor even accurate.
Suggestion: Either just use "Information in Web pages or other primary 
resources" and stop there, or continue through "user agent"; but could you 
please tell us what is actually excluded from your concept of content?

# DELIVERY UNIT
Proposed: Change to:
"Web page or other primary resource
collection of information, consisting of one or more resources, intended to 
be rendered together, and identified by a single Uniform Resource 
Identifier (URLs etc.)
Note: This definition based on the definition of Web page in Web 
Characterization Terminology & Definitions Sheet. The concept of 
simultaneity was removed to allow the term to cover interactive and 
scripted content.
Example: A Web page including all embedded images and media.
Example: An interactive movie-like shopping environment where the user 
navigates about and activates products to have them demonstrated, and moves 
them to cart to buy them."
Problem: [?? EOWG please check the definition itself.]
Suggestion: [EOWG please confirm: Yes this term is much much better!]

# IDIOMS:
Proposed: " words or phrases specific to a region or language that do not 
mean what the dictionary definitions of the individual words say

Example: The English phrase "he blew his stack" means that someone became 
very angry."
Problem: We've been advised by someone from the UK that, given a different 
local idiomatic meaning of your example phrase than the one you intended, 
you really don't want to be using this example here.
Suggestion: New example.

# LUMINOSITY CONTRAST RATIO
Proposed: "(L1 + 0.05) / (L2 + 0.05), where L1 is the luminosity of the 
lighter of the text or background colors, and L2 is the luminosity of the 
darker of the text or background colors..." etc.

Problem: While the proposed definition is much better than the current one, 
it is missing a basic intro to what luminosity means.
Suggestion: Add a phrase at the start of the definition that says 
'Luminosity deals with color contract and brightness. More precisely it is 
. . ." then go on w/ your new proposed definition.

# NORMATIVE
Current: Required for conformance.
[Leave this as is? Check w/ EOWG]

# PROGRAMMATICALLY DETERMINED
Proposed: "recognized by assistive technologies that support the 
technologies in the chosen baseline"

Problem: this may be an accurate definition, but it is not understandable, 
even if one already knows all three of the linked terms embedded within 
this. The current definition was not particularly understandable either. 
Possibly in this instance using the ISO-definition format makes this harder 
to understand.
Suggestion: Adding a subject might help, even if in brackets, e.g. 
"[Content that is] recognized by..."

#. REAL-TIME EVENTS
Proposed: "real world event occurring at the same time as the viewing and 
not generated by the content and not recorded"
Problem: ?? [Check w/ Shawn, had there been a problem identified on this?]

#. UNICODE
Proposed definition:
"universal character set that defines all the characters needed for writing 
the majority of living languages in use on computers"

Problems:
- Unicode is not restricted to living languages
- The following is the actual definition of Unicode from the Unicode 
Consortium's glossary.
Suggestion:
The universal character encoding [maintained by the Unicode Consortium], 
which provides the basis for processing, storage and interchange of text 
data in any language in all modern software and information technology 
protocols.



-- 
Judy Brewer    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/CSAIL Building 32-G530
32 Vassar Street
Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Wednesday, 1 March 2006 21:24:41 UTC