Leuven ZIG Meeting, July 2000

1. Overview of the W3C Leuven ZIG Meeting, July 2000

2. W3C Was established in 1994 • To develop common protocols for the web, • promote its evolution, and • improve interoperability. • Motto: "lead the Web to its full potential"

3. What is the W3C? • Two Views: • The W3C View • The cynical view

4. W3C View "lead the Web to its full potential” AND ……… • ensure that the web remains a robust, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure; • make the web accessible to as many users as possible; • promote technologies that bridge differences in culture, education, ability, material resources, and physical limitations.

5. Cynical View W3C is an invention of Microsoft, Netscape, and IBM, to enable them to bring products to market more quickly.

6. the US Europe Asia (MIT) (INRIA) (Keio University, Japan) An international industry consortium jointly hosted by institutions in

7. 424 members (as of June 23): • commercial companies • academic institutions • consortiums • government agencies

8. commercial companies: • hardware, • software, • and telecommunications companies; • content providers; • and corporate users.

9. Adobe Systems Inc. America Online, Inc. American Express Andromedia Apple Computer, Inc. AT&T Autodesk, Inc. Baltimore Technologies The Boeing Company University of Bologna University of Bristol Bull S.A. Cardiff Software CERN Cisco Systems CiTEC CITIBANK, N.A. CNRS Coalition for Networked Information Compaq Computer Corporation Concur Technologies Corel Corporation Data Channel Data Research Associates, Inc. Eastman Kodak Company Federal Geographic Data Committee France Telecom Fretwell-Downing Fulcrum Technologies, Inc. GE Information Services, Inc. George Washington University Graphic Communications Association The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

10. Hewlett Packard Company HiT Software Hitachi, Ltd. HitchHiker Software GmbH Honda Motor Co., Ltd Hong Kong Jockey Club HTML Writers Guild, Inc. IBM Corporation IBM Taiwan Corporation IEEE Computer Society Intel Corporation DOI Foundation Japan Broadcasting Corporation Keio University Library of Congress Lotus Lucent Technologies MIT Merrill Lynch Metropolitan Police Service Microsoft Corporation Microstar Software Ltd. Microsystems Software, Inc. MindQuake Interactive, Inc. MITRE Corporation Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Motorola NASA Ames Research Center NSA National Univ of Singapore

11. NBC Internet NCR NEC Corporation Network Solutions University of New South Wales Nokia OCLC Open Text Corporation SilverPlatter Information Inc. Stack Overflow AG Sun Microsystems, Inc. EPA Web3D Consortium webMethods, Inc. WinStar Xerox Corporation ZOT Group

12. Membership • $50,000. (full) • $5,000. (affiliate) • government agencies • non-profit • limited revenue (no difference in privileges)

13. Services and Products • Primary service: • a vendor neutral forum • Primary product: • “Recommendations”

14. W3C Recommendations HTML 4.01 XML CSS RDF XHTML (XML) Namespaces SMIL DOM PICS Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

15. Stages of a Recomendation • Working Draft • in development (42) • last call (15) • Candidate Recommendation (3) • Proposed Recommendation (1) • Recommendation (22)

16. Organizational Elements • Staff. About 60. The “Team” • Advisory Committee/Board • Working Groups

17. “Domains” • User Interface • Technology and Society • Architecture • Web Accessibility Initiative

18. User Interface • Premise • As web information continues to grow, both in volume and variety, it will be used by a greater diversity of people, and simplicity and interoperability will take on even greater importance. • Focus • formats/languages that will present information to users with more accuracy and a higher level of control

19. User Interface Domain:Activities • HTML • Style sheets • Graphics • Internationalization (character sets) • Document Object Model • Mobile Access • Synchronized Multimedia • Voice Browsers

20. “Domains” • User Interface • Technology and Society • Architecture • Web Accessibility Initiative

21. Technology and Society • “trying to understand the social impact of the web” …….. • Looks at Ethical and Legal issues…... • electronic commerce • privacy • …… “from an international perspective, (seeking) to understand these issues in light of new technology, both by changing the technology and by educating users about technology's benefits, costs, and limits."

22. Technology and Society (continued) • Educate public and policy makers about web capabilities and how these affect and are affected by proposed policies. • “support a diverse range of public policy options without cultural fragmentation or domination.”

23. Technology and Society DomainActivities • Metadata • RDF • Digital Signature Initiative • various privacy and security-related initiatives.

24. “Domains” • User Interface • Technology and Society • Architecture • Web Accessibility Initiative

25. Architecture • HTTP • XML • naming and addressing • web characterization But Mostly: XML

26. XML • XML Schema • XML Linking • Namespaces • XML Core • Canonical XML • XML Information Set • XML Query language

27. “Domains” • User Interface • Technology and Society • Architecture • Web Accessibility Initiative

28. Web Accessibility Initiative • promote web-usability and accessibility with respect to various: • constraints • and disabilities

29. Constraints • noisy surroundings • poor illumination • eyes, ears, or hands busy (e.g.driving to work) • loud environment • early version of browser, voice browser, different operating system • text-only screen, small screen, slow Internet connection.

30. Disabilities • inability to see, hear, move, process certain types of information • difficulty reading or comprehending text • inability to use a keyboard or mouse • lack of fluency of the language in which a document is written

31. GuidelinesProduced by WAI • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines • User Agent Accessibility guidelines • Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines W3C Recommendation May 1999 W3C Candidate Recommendation Jan 2000 W3C Recommendation Feb 1999

32. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines • how to make web content accessible to people with disabilities. • User Agent Accessibility guidelines • Designing user agents accessible to people with disabilities -- graphical desktop browsers, multi-media players, text/voice browsers, plug-ins, other assistive technologies. • Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines • How to design authoring tools that produce accessible web content, and create accessible authoring interfaces.

33. W3c in 7 Pointshttp://www.w3.org/Consortium/Points/ • Universal Access • Semantic Web • Trust • Interoperability • Evolvability • Decentralization • Cooler Multimedia!

34. Universal Access • Internationalization • Mobile Access • TVWeb • Voice Browser • Web Accessibility Initiative

35. Semantic Web • RDF • XML • digital signatures

36. Trust • digital signatures • annotation mechanisms • group authoring • versioning

37. Improved Multimedia • Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) language • Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL). • To achieve: • interactivity • richer media • resizable images • quality sound, video, 3D effects • animation?

38. Open. Meetings attended by anyone who wishes to participate. Effective for collection of ideas, and providing criticism, from a wide community. Domain: Internet protocols Assigns defined groups of committed experts to solve specific tasks. effective at producing specifications likely to meet the needs of mem-bers and the community. Domain: architecture of the Web IETF and W3C