Fwd: Last Call review of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

>Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 19:21:11 -0500
>From: Ian Jacobs <ij(at)w3.org>
>Organization: W3C - World Wide Web Consortium
>Subject: Last Call review of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
>
>Dear Chairs,=20
>
>On behalf of the User Agent Guidelines Working Group [1], I am=20
>pleased to announce the publication of the "User Agent=20
>Accessibility Guidelines 1.0" Last Call Working Draft.=20
>The document address is:
>
>        http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-19991105
>
>The Last Call review period will end 1 December 1999. Please
>send review comments before that date to w3c-wai-ua(at)w3.org (archives
>available at [2]).
>
>At their 3 November 1999 teleconference [3], the User Agent Guidelines
>Working Group decided to move the UA Guidelines to Last Call. By
>moving to last call, the Working Group asserts that it
>has met the requirement of its charter [7] "to complete the
>development of user agent accessibility guidelines addressing
>accessibility of graphical, voice, and text browsers, multimedia
>players, and third-party assistive technologies which work in
>conjunction with browsers and multimedia players."=20
>
>The Working Group has also published a "Techniques Document" that=20
>explains different ways to satisfy the requirements of the Guidelines.
>Comments on this document are also welcome, although it is not
>in Last Call. The Working Group does not anticipate moving
>the Techniques Document to Recommendation. When and if the=20
>Guidelines become a Recommendation, the Techniques Document will
>become a W3C Note. The Techniques Document published at the
>same time as the Last Call Guidelines is:
>
>        http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WD-WAI-USERAGENT-TECHS-19991105
>
>The list of changes to the Guidelines [8] and the WG's issues
>list [9] are available on the Web.
>
>QUESTIONS AND ISSUES
>
>In your review, please consider the following questions and issues:
>
>1) Do you understand the Guidelines and Checkpoints or do they need
>    clarification?
>
>2) Do you find the documents (Guidelines and Techniques) themselves
>    usable? Can you find what you are looking for?
>
>3) Two checkpoints [numbers here] require user agents to make
>    available to users information about the current input
>    configuration (e.g., keyboard input). These checkpoints=20
>    have been assigned different priorities: Priority 1 for=20
>    user-specified configuration and Priority 2 for
>    author-specified configuration (e.g., access keys). The Working
>    Group did not reach consensus on whether these two checkpoints
>    should be merged into a single checkpoint, and what the priority
>    of such a checkpoint would be.
>
>4) Checkpoint 6.1 (Priority 1) asks user agents to implement the=20
>    accessibility features of supported specifications.=20
>    In the Authoring Tool Guidelines Proposed Recommendation,=20
>    checkpoints that refer to
>    content accessibility do so by "Relative Priority". This means that
>    the priority of the checkpoint in the UAGL depends on how much
>    you wish to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
>    [6]. There has been a suggestion to make 6.1 a checkpoint with
>    a Relative Priority rather than Priority 1. The Working Group
>    did not reach consensus on whether the burden of doing so
>    (complicating the priority definition) outweighed the benefit=20
>    of consistency among the three sets of Guidelines. Also, it is=20
>    not clear that a Priority 3 requirement in WCAG would always be=20
>    a Priority 3 requirement in UAGL (i.e., it may be more important
>    to implement   a feature than for the author to supply it).=20
>    Comments on the proposal to make 6.1 a Relative Priority
>    checkpoint are welcome.
>
>DEPENDENCIES AND REVIEW
>
>The Working Group thanks all who have contributed to the
>Guidelines and Techniques document. The Working Group also
>thanks in advance those people who have committed
>to reviewing [4] the Last Call Working Draft:=20
>
>     1.Jim Fruchterman
>     2.Doug Geoffray
>     3.Ben Wiess
>     4.T.V. Raman=20
>     5.Fraser Shein
>     6.Bryan Campbell=20
>     7.Peter Korn
>     8.Lakespur Roca
>     9.Earl Johnson
>    10.Mike Paciello
>    11.Janina Sajka=20
>    12.Liam Quinn
>    13.Eric Freese
>    14.George Madaus
>    15.John Gardner
>    16.Gregg Vanderheiden
>    17.Markku T. Hakkinen
>    18.Geoff Freed
>    19.Patrick Sheehan
>    20.Richard Primack
>    21.H=E5kon Wium Lie
>    22.Chuck Hitchcock
>
>All Group Chairs are also invited to send their comments to=20
>the above address.=20
>
>The Working Group has identified dependencies with the following W3C
>Working Groups and requests review from them. Even if review
>is not possible, we request that the Chairs listed below
>announce their review intentions to w3c-wai-ua (a public mailing list).
>
>1) WAI Protocols & Formats WG
>    Co-Chairs: Al Gilman and Daniel Dardailler   =20
>      UAWG provides input on accessibility requirements with regard to
>      W3C technologies for which PFWG manages dependencies.
>
>
>2) WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WG=20
>    Co-Chairs: Chuck Letourneau and Gregg Vanderheiden (Trace)=20
>      UAWG ensures that the "until user agent" clauses in=20
>      WCAG are addressed by user agents.
>
>
>3) WAI Authoring Tool Guidelines WG=20
>    Chair: Jutta Treviranus (U of Toronto)
>      UAWG coordinates on common component of user interface=20
>      accessibility.
>
>
>4) WAI Education & Outreach WG=20
>    Chair: Judy Brewer (W3C)
>       EOWG will assist in promoting awareness and implementation of=20
>       User Agent Accessibility Guidelines.
>
>
>5) CSS/FP WG
>    Chair: Chris Lilley (W3C)
>       UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in CSS.
>
>
>6) DOM WG
>    Chair: Lauren Wood (Softquad)
>       UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements for DOM.=20
>
>
>7) HTML WG
>    Chair: Steven Pemberton (CWI)
>       UAWG will provide input on potential improvements=20
>       to XHTML accessibility features.=20
>
>
>8) Mobile Access IG=20
>    Chair: Tatsuya Hagino (W3C)
>       UAWG and Mobile Access IG will coordinate to ensure consistent=20
>       approaches on guidelines development and on CC/PP.
>
>
>9) MathML WG
>    Co-Chairs: Patrick Ion (AMS) and Angel Diaz (IBM)
>       UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements for MathML.
>
>
>10) SYMM WG
>     Chair: Thierry Michel (W3C)
>       UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in SMIL.
>
>
>11) Voice Browser WG
>     Chair: Tomasz Imielinski (Rutgers U)
>       UAWG will provide input on accessibility requirements in=20
>       Voice Browsing.
>
>
>Thank you,
>
>  - Ian Jacobs
>
>[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/
>[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/
>[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1999OctDec/0244.html
>[4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/1999/10/reviewers-last-call
>[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/PR-WAI-AUTOOLS-19991026=20
>[6] http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT
>[7] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-charter
>[8] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/wai-ua-wd-changes.html
>[9] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html
>
>--=20
>Ian Jacobs (jacobs(at)w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814
>Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

--=20
Kynn Bartlett                                    mailto:kynn(at)hwg.org
President, HTML Writers Guild                    http://www.hwg.org/
AWARE Center Director                          http://aware.hwg.org/

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