Table of Contents

Scratch Pad for Unified Use Case Draft and Flow of Control Integration

Note: This document is a collection point for thought exercises and nagging questions that need to be addressed at some point in the development of Expert Handlers. As new issues are added, the page will be given a more appropriate and logical structure, to facilitate ease of access and grouping of related ideas, issues and questions.

Contents


Specific Strategies, Proposals, Questions & Inquiries

Specific Strategies for Expert Handlers

The level of granularity necessary to provide meaningful interaction between the user of an AT and a specific markup language is highly dependent upon the type of specialized content being described, as well as the parameters and structures inherent to the specialized knowledge domain for which the specialized markup language has been designed. Expert handlers, therefore, need the ability to cache ontologies specific to each type of specialized content, in order to enable full interactivity with the specialized content. Such ontologies can be provided through Web Ontology Language (OWL), Resource Description Framework (RDF), and/or Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) in order to provide an assistive technology with meaningful, and appropriately structured, API calls and mappings.

source: prose deleted from final draft of the //Unified Use Cases for Expert Handlers, version 1.0//

References and Resources in Regards Ontology


Note: Please also consult the Expert Handlers' Reference: Semantic Web Activities & Initiatives of Interest to Expert Handlers

Speech and Specific Domain Markup

Janina's original text: Similar “smart” content rendering and navigation strategies are required by screen reader users in more complex, nonlinear content such as mathematical (chemical, biological, etc.) expressions, music, and graphical renderings. Because such content is generally the province of knowledge domain experts and students, and not the domain of most computer users, screen readers do not invest the significant resources necessary to serve only a small portion of their customer base with specialized routines for such content. Furthermore, the general rendering and navigation strategies provided for linear (textual), menu, and tabular content are woefully insufficient to allow users to examine specific portions of such domain specific expressions effectively. On the other hand domain specific markup often does provide sufficient specificity so that the focus and rendering needs of the screen reader can be well supported.

proposed revision by GJR: Similar “smart” content rendering and navigation strategies are required by screen reader users in more complex, nonlinear content such as mathematical (chemical, biological, etc.) expressions, music, and graphical renderings. Because such content is generally the province of knowledge domain experts and students, and not the domain of most computer users, screen readers do not invest the significant resources necessary to serve only a small portion of their customer base with specialized routines for such content. In some cases, domain specific markup does provide sufficient native specificity so that the focus and rendering needs of the screen reader can be well supported, but there is no garuntee that they will be implemented by a page author. Furthermore, the general rendering and navigation strategies provided for linear (textual), menu, and tabular content are woefully insufficient to allow users to examine specific portions of such domain specific expressions effectively.“

added during the Expert Handlers conference call of 14 january 2008

bubbling order: most generic handler to next possible, or user or author-defined, handler?

Question: where does an expert handler sit in the bubbling from most generic handler to next possible (or user or author-defined) handler?

here follows a (probably unsuccessful) attempt to translate the question above into something approximating actual english:

  1. application returns a value of “true” to event handler if a reserved key is not used, so that it bubbles to the next possible handler;
  2. does “expert handler” imply that we are at the top of the bubbling? – that is, the end, or last, depending upon one's point of regard. just because it is an expert handler doesn't mean it shouldn't pick up where an accessibility API or the sort of middle-ware ARIA markup provides to ATs leaves off, reducing the in-process time by communicating directly bi-directionally with a generic event handler so that a user has effective and easy (and easy to learn and remember. because it is their ATs's familiar interface through which they are accustomed to interact) input/output control over specialized markup without having to invoke an application mode?(is that a question or a statement?)

posted by Gregory J. Rosmaita, 21:17 UTC 2007-12-19


Nomenclature Issues

Simply to input numerical values, the following are necessary:

which would translate into be input command:

Is there a standard convention to denote majuscule and minuscule in an abbreviated form, such as: minuscule = min; majuscule = maj

also needed for keyboard input; lesson of current DTBs – one can't directly access a book's front-matter using a dedicated hardware device, when the front-matter is paginated with roman numerals.


composed by GJR 2007-10-01; posted 04:31h UTC 2007-12-22


Questions Concerning Nomenclature, Homonyms and Scientific Terminology

  1. Are there terms in mathematics, for example, that can be used to define each level of granularity? If not is it sufficient to just increment/decrement the level? (question retained from Pete Brunet's original draft) A related question has been raised by Shawn Djernes.

  2. How does one distinguish between identical characters used in a specific specialized markup dialect for multiple purposes? Neil offered an excellent example at the 26 November 2007 Expert Handlers Conference call, when he pointed out, that, “for math, some ways of making [input] accessible might be to say “one-half” “one-over-two” “start fraction 1 over 2 end fraction” – would be speech rule dependent – [if] encoded as tree in XML, software still has to take tree that IA2 or MSAA gave the AT – software has to be farmed out to expert handler to obtain what to announce, [and] what to write to braille display” This would be true, as well for input modalities – how does a human communicate the difference to a machine, verbally and non-verbally? An inquiry into the granularity levels of each major discipline for which a markup language has been defined may have to be made. Is there a – optimally RDF schema – repository for such vocabularies, and if not, where would be a suitable host slash provider for such a reference - ISO?

  3. Is it possible to broaden/generalize discipline-specific conventions of granularity? is it possible to use the International Scientific Vocabulary (ISV) – the predecessor of as well as successor to Interlingua – for this purpose? how widely used is ISV in educational and research settings? It is extensively cited by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as the source of such words as ”millisecond“ (which is given a “born-on” date of 1909) and ”nanosecond“, which was coined in 1959.

    Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines ISV as:

    “a part of the vocabulary of the sciences and other specialized studies that consists of words or other linguistic forms current in two or more languages and differing from New Latin in being adapted to the structure of the individual languages in which they appear – abbreviation ISV”


[[http://a11y.org/uuc|UUC1]] Reviews & Comments

Note: Reviews and comments upon Unified Use Cases, version 1.0 are listed in chronological order (oldest to newest). Reviews of UUC1


Comments on UUC1

Comments 1 & 2: AT-SPI and MusicXML to Braille Translation Work

source: Mario Lang, post to accessibility-rfc (20 March 2008)

In the first paragraphs, you mention MSAA and iAccessible2 as an example for AT APIs. It feels wrong to me to not mention AT-SPI in this context, especially since AT-SPI is the only API currently working on Linux in this area.

  1. MusicXML is mentioned as one specialized markup language. I didn't really read further into this document yet, I just wanted to mention that I am in fact right now developing a MusicXML to Braille music translation program, available from http://delysid.org/freedots.html

If any ATs would like to make use of this, I'd be pretty interested on input from their side.FreeDots is currently written in an AT independent way, it can be used with or without a screen reader. Or, one might even claim it is an AT specialized for MusicXML.