Subject: Accessibility of IETF Remote Participation Services

From: IETF Administrative Director <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 12:06:37 -0700

From: [email-masked]
Subject:  Accessibility of IETF Remote Participation Services

For more than a decade, the IETF has tried to make it easier for remote 
attendees to participate in regular and interim face-to-face  meetings.   The 
current tools that the IETF has been using, as well as the state of remote 
participation services in the IETF was summarized by the IETF Chair in a 
message to the IETF-Announce list on 5 February 2013:
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg77020.html

Section 1 summarizes the current remote participation system: 

   The IETF's current remote participation system ("RPS") consists of a
   outbound real-time audio stream for each session carried to remote
   attendees over HTTP, textual multi-user chat carried over XMPP
   (commonly called Jabber), and posting of slides prior to the WG
   session so that they can be downloaded from the IETF web site.

   WebEx and Meetecho are experimentally supported, offering outbound
   real-time audio stream synchronized to the slides for the remote
   participant.  Meetecho displays the Jabber Room on the screen with
   slides, and it can also be used to replay the audio and slides from
   a recording.

As noted in Section 4 of the IETF Chair message, the IETF is currently soliciting 
suggestions for improvements in its RPS capabilities.   As part of that, the IETF 
would like to solicit feedback on the accessibility and usability of remote participation 
services by IETF participants with disabilities.  If you would like to comment on 
the accessibility and usability of IETF RPS services, please send email by July 26, 2013 to 
iaoc-rps at ietf.org, Subject: RPS Accessibility, and CC: [email-masked]. 

Bernard Aboba
Chair, IETF Remote Participation Services Committee

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 15:33:18 -0700

On 6/27/2013 12:06 PM, IETF Administrative Director wrote:
>    As part of that, the IETF
> the accessibility and usability of IETF RPS services,

To the extent that the intent is to formulate requirements, it would 
probably help to augment community comments by hiring an interaction and 
web usability and accessibility expert to review current and plausible 
capabilities.

Since the topic is a professional specialty that is not certain to be 
represented amongst IETF protocol engineers who choose to comment, it 
seems wise to ask for help from a professional.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net