Notes from first GAWDS meeting, 15th November 2003
Hello all
Here are the meeting notes and photos from Saturday. 15th November 2003. Apologies if I've misquoted anyone, there was a lot to write up.
High res versions of the photos are available from me on request.
There's a list of action points at the bottom, feel free to add to them.
Regards Ian Davidson
Notes from GAWDS meeting
Sheffield - Saturday 15th November 2003 1pm - 4:30pm
Members Present
- Nigel Peck
- Rob Sayles
- Matthew Ogston
- Jim Byrne
- Amanda Owen
- Gez Lemon
- Ian Davidson
1) Introductions
-- All GAWDS members present introduced themselves
-- There was a chat on current issues in web design.
[Everyone] GAWDS is a group but there is a lot of self-interest in being part of gawds. We should be honest about that.
-- Jim discussed where GAWDS came from, how it gestated.
[Jim] The 'S' in GAWDS was originally for 'Scotland' but when it became clear GAWDS was international this was dropped. GAWD was not available for domain names.
[Matt] Does the 'D' stand for designer or developer?
2) GAWDS organisational discussion and business models
-- Jim provided everyone with a guide to setting up a co-operative and said that he looked at the different business models and thought the co-operative model seemed the best. He asked for feedback from the group.
[Jim] GAWDS should have a point of view on accessibility issues, this is our strength.
-- Rob discussed his views about gawds.
[Rob] There should be no chinks in the GAWDS armor.
[Rob] Other communities may pick holes.
[Rob] We need to find a line through things.
[Nigel] GAWDS must look good/appealing to designers.
-- Jim suggested we write a statement 'Is our website accessibile', and then asked for feedback from the group.
-- Matt asked if we could get a GAWDS business cards. He suggested that we need a tagline to summarise what GAWDS does in a one-liner. Jim and other thought this was a good idea but had concerns that we were too specific then the tagline would have to change in 2years time for example.
[Rob] We could put the ethos on the website.
[everyone] Accessibility is a moving target.
[everyone] The GAWDS business model can't be setup until the GAWDS website is up to scratch.
3) GAWDS services - What do we provide
-- The conversation moved on to a discussion on what services GAWDS might provide.
[Rob] We should have auditing services on the website.
[Everyone] We should have resources and links.
-- Members discussed current projects they were involved in and discussed potential for adapting projects for use on the GAWDS website.
[Ian] GAWDS branding is very important.
-- Nigel mentioned he knew of access to testing labs for users with access requirements.
[Everyone] We should have referrals to good designers.
-- The conversation changed to focus on GAWDS target audience.
[Nigel/Jim] GAWDS offers services to developers and designers not the end user.
[Everyone] We should be providing education via our links and resources.
[Rob] We should rehash or link information from other sources and members.
[Matt] What happens if a GAWDS member already does auditing service or a service that the guild already provides?
-- There was then a discussion on how GAWDS members might operate when there might be conflict of interest or duplication. The general consensus was that the guild would deal with these issues as and when they become a problem somehow.
-- There was a discussion about upcoming resources and information that would be good for the GAWDS website.
[Jim] People could pitch for work through GAWDS - That's attractive to them.
[Jim] We could be referring/offering audit services and methods.
[Rob] The tangible business benefit needs to be outlined on the site.
[Everyone] Zeldman is good at making the case for business.
[Rob] We need to understand our competitors, enemies.
[Rob] Can we get information on the RNIB audit - to find out information on their auditing process.
[Gez] We need guild members to stay on top of the upcoming WCAG 2.0 document and process. They could report back to the guild to benefit all members.
[Nigel] The Wizilla accessibility checker looks promising.
4) GAWDS membership criteria
[Jim] We need categories of membership.
[Matt] When we get more members we will have to be checking quality of service.
[Jim] We will have to up the membership requirements.
[Nigel] For membership we can look at the person's portfolio of work.
5) GAWDS lines of communication
-- Members noted frequent problems with the current email list.
-- Jim explained the history behind the hosting of the mailing list and noted none of it was really relevant now and we are not tied to the current system.
[Jim] We should keep the email list alive for organisational issues.
[Rob,Nigel] Useful information and discussion is better served by the accessify forum so it's archived and searchable by google.
[Ian] We should be using MailMan for the email list software.
[Rob] Between all the guild members we must be able to find spare capacity to host the list somewhere new.
-- There were concerns that discussion on irc were being lost. Ian noted eggdrop software could be deployed to log all the chat text to a website. Other members anticipated using the IRC channel more. Amanda uses it all the time.
5) GAWDS Website
-- The discussion moved on to the website. It was collectively agreed that this was currently our biggest priority.
[Rob] We need to get something up and running ASAP, bare minimum a holder page at least.
[Jim] Can we end use of the wiki.
[Gez] Let's keep the wiki
[Jim] Let's use the CMS for web development, the wiki is unnecessary.
-- Members noted the need for a sandbox or development area of the CMS
-- Guild members thanked Gez for his hard work on the RSS syndication programming.
-- Jim noted due to time constraints he is unable to give as much time as he'd like to development on the PHP based CMS. Jim mentioned he would like open up development of the CMS to other guild members. He indicated that he didn't want to make the CMS open source at this time.
-- Rob suggested that the CMS had some project management and the development tasks divided up between PHP knowledgeable guild members.
-- Rob demonstrated the logo branding work he'd been working on his laptop.
-- General consensus among members present was that logo design no. 1 or 2 were the best but Ian and others didn't like the 'G' of the no.2 typeface. Rob agreed to do a few more variations and then we would formalise it.
-- There was discussion on the website template and design and the colours.
[Matt] Hyperlinks should be blue, visited links should be purple for convention.
[Jim] Underlined links should be solid not dashed for convention.
[Ian] Icons and graphics are needed because users with learning difficulties don't read.
-- Rob and Jim suggested on using a user preference switcher to allow the user to pick graphics heavy version. Ian asked for images to be considered at design stage of template and noted images take lots of development time and should be planned to add in progressively.
-- Ian would like the GAWDS website to have basic MP3 audio narration. He noted that this ideally should be done using a flash MX based MP3 preloader. He noted that this is something that can be added later in development but we make audio part of our plan/ good practice recommendations.
[Rob] Have we got a launch date for the GAWDS holding page- Suggest December 1st.
6) HTML 4.01 Vs XHTML strict doctype decision
-- It was agreed that this decision was a biggie and we needed to work it out before we can forge ahead. Attending members were divided on this issue as are many others.
[Rob] We really need to move on this.
[Jim] Let's decide on what's best to use for general use.
-- It was agreed that members would create a basic pro's and con's document.
-- Then there would be a anonymous poll vote on the accessify forum by guild members to settle the result.
-- The poll choices shall be. HTML 4.0, XHTML scrict or Doctype apathy.
-- The pros and cons document shall form parts of the 'Are we accessible' document on the GAWDS website.
[Gez] I'm not sure if a voting system is credible.
7) Meeting finish
-- Ian was asked to write up his notes and photos and publish to the guild.
8) GAWDS action points summary - rough order of priority
- Website holding page
- Website template and colours
- Logo variations (Rob)
- Setup doctype cyber poll in accessify forum
- Setup accessify thread on pros/cons of different doctypes.
- Investigate WCAG2 guidelines (everyone)
- Abandon Wiki, use CMS.
- open up CMS to guild members (Jim)
- Develop CMS sandbox/ development area.
More to add...
Meeting notes by Ian Davidson