w3c / remote-meetings

Accessibility of Remote Meetings

This is the repository for Accessibility of Remote Meetings, maintained by the Research Questions Task Force of the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group.

Contributions are welcome, including new GitHub issues or pull requests.

Latest editor's draft: https://w3c.github.io/remote-meetings/

remote-meetings's Issues

References should be made consistent.

Some references in this document are given as links that refer directly to the external resources.

Other references are provided as bibliography entries.

I think we should make them all consistent - probably as bibliography entries.

[Accessibility of Remote Meetings] WAI standards

In Accessibility of Remote Meetings, section Applicable W3C/WAI Guidancehttps://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/task-forces/research-questions/wiki/Accessibility_of_Remote_Meetings#Applicable_W3C.2FWAI_Guidance, it says:

Web Accessibility Initiative Guidelines, of which there are three: for Web content and applications; for user agents (browsers, etc); and for authoring tools (tools use to create content and applications. The first two guidelines are W3C Recommendations (Web standards); the third is a normative W3C Working Group Note.

I believe this is incorrect; WCAG and ATAG are W3C Recommendations, UAAG is a Working Group Note.

Maybe swap “for authoring tools (tools use to create content and applications)” and “for user agents (browsers, etc)“?

How should the use of collaborative editing tools in remote meetings be addressed in this document?

At the 6 April 2022 RQTF teleconference, the issue of how the use of collaborative editing tools during remote meetings should be addressed in this document was discussed.

We currently mention collaborative editing tools in section 4.1.2, noting the relevance of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines. That is, any editing tool used in a meeting should conform to ATAG. That's the full extent of our acknowledgment of the issue in the present draft.

It was suggested at the Task Force meeting that we should add an Editor's Note on this issue prior to publication of the next Public Working Draft, and that some aspects of the problem may be taken up in revising Accessibility of Remote Meetings further.

It was also suggested that the issues associated with making collaborative editing software accessible could usefully be treated elsewhere (e.g., as a separate work item, potentially leading to a Task Force deliverable). However, it was also recognized that some issues (e.g., the complexities of attending to the real-time interactions in the meeting while attempting to perform collaborative editing tasks - potentially involving multiple parties who are simultaneously editing a document) could usefully be mentioned here.

Should we streamline the quotations from UAAG 2.0 in section 3.3.2?

In section 3.3.2, we quote extensively from applicable success criteria of User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

Should we at least trim the quotes to remove unnecessary material, or replace them instead with a summary? Note that elsewhere, we do summarize some of the success criteria of WCAG 2.1 without quoting them in detail.

Resource should not be in TR space

There is no good reason why this content should be in TR space, the W3C/WAI website has already a related resource and the content of this document would be easier findable in the W3C/WAI navigation.

EOWG Feedback on Remote Meetings Document

Sorry for the late response on this. EOWG did meet and review the Remote Meetings Draft. Here is a link to the public survey with comments and recommendations: https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35532/Remote-Mtgs-1/results#xq2

Clarify that availability of ASR-generated captions should not depend on decisions by meeting hosts.

Clarify that the ability for meeting participants to eanble ASR-generated captions should not depend on decisions or actions taken by meeting hosts/organizers.

The focus of section 4 is unclear, and parts of it may better belong in section 3.

The introduction to section 4 refers to materials used in remote meetings (e.g., presentations, documents, etc. - we should probably mention meeting notes as well).

However, section 4 goes on to discuss WCAG success criteria applicable to live content (i.e., the real-time interaction among meeting participants). this is rather confusing.

The accessibility of the interaction among participants is usually a function of the meeting platform, so perhaps parts of this material should be moved into section 3 instead, and section 4 should purely focus on presentations, documents, notes, and associated materials.

As it stands, the current organization is very confusing and unclear.

Comments on what should be done are welcome.

WCAG for content that is only shown?

Apologies, I opened this issue in the wrong repo:

Question about this part -

4.1.1 Relevance of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Any prepared content (e.g., documents, presentation slides, prerecorded multimedia) that is shared with or shown to meeting participants is subject to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Policies typically specify that documents, presentations and related materials should conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

If content is only shown (not shared) in a remote meeting, participants are not interacting with the content directly so it seems that only some WCAG SCs should be required - like contrast. SC's that require name, role, value (for example) wouldn't be useful if the file is not shared.

Summarize important requirements from other documents, as appropriate

In some cases, where we cite other documents for additional requirements, we should summarize the most important or salient of these requirements in the Remote Meetings text itself instead of simply referring readers elsewhere.

For example, reference to RTC Accessibility User Requirements should be accompanied by a summary of any important points that are not already captured in Remote Meetings.

Thanks to @JaninaSajka for noting this issue.

Is audio and video testing capability a meeting platform requirement?

In section 5.1, we advise meeting hosts to encourage participants to test their audio and video prior to a meeting. However, nowhere in this document do we suggest that meeting platforms should offer audio and video testing capabilities that can be used outside of meetings.

Can the tests be performed adequately without support from the meeting platform? If not, should we state a platform requirement on this subject earlier in the document? How strong is the accessibility argument for offering testing capabilities?

Clarify that meeting software should support editing of captions in recordings of meetings to improve textual accuracy and synchronization.