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fantasai | 3 Jul 2012 21:25

W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

Since Robin Berjon and I happened to be in the same place last week,
we decided to try taking the data collected with Tantek and Vincent
about what needs to go into W3C specs:
   http://www.w3.org/wiki/SpecProd/Restyle/Content

And pull it into Karl Dubost's design template:
   http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/spec-prod/2011OctDec/0095.html

Here's the result:
   http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/design/w3c-restyle/

There's a lot more metadata than what Karl had represented, so we
couldn't do exactly his design, but we tried to get close.

So, here's where you (spec-prod) come in! Please comment on the design,
focusing on the organization of the information, not on the CSS (which
is a mess).

In a later phase we'll pass this off to people with actual design
skills (i.e. not me), so while I'll try to address any comments on
the visual design, it is not the focus here. (Do not expect the final
result to look anything like this mockup.)

~fantasai
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Ian Jacobs | 3 Jul 2012 21:50
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II


On 3 Jul 2012, at 2:25 PM, fantasai wrote:

> Since Robin Berjon and I happened to be in the same place last week,
> we decided to try taking the data collected with Tantek and Vincent
> about what needs to go into W3C specs:
>  http://www.w3.org/wiki/SpecProd/Restyle/Content
> 
> And pull it into Karl Dubost's design template:
>  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/spec-prod/2011OctDec/0095.html
> 
> Here's the result:
>  http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/design/w3c-restyle/
> 
> There's a lot more metadata than what Karl had represented, so we
> couldn't do exactly his design, but we tried to get close.
> 
> So, here's where you (spec-prod) come in! Please comment on the design,
> focusing on the organization of the information, not on the CSS (which
> is a mess).

Hi Fantasai,

Please include two more bits:

 * Superseded. There should be a visible indicator (and non-visible information as well) when a
specification has been superseded. This may happen
   as frequently as "with the publication of the next draft.")

 * Ready to use? There should be an easy-to-find answer to that question up front. Where the answer is "Yes,
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fantasai | 3 Jul 2012 23:07

Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

On 07/03/2012 12:50 PM, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>
> Please include two more bits:
>
>   * Superseded. There should be a visible indicator (and non-visible information as well) when a
specification has been superseded. This may happen
>     as frequently as "with the publication of the next draft.")

I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you show me an example?

>   * Ready to use? There should be an easy-to-find answer to that question up front. Where the answer is "Yes,
but..." there should be clues of how to
>     get more detail.

The answer is "Yes, but..." in every case, isn't it? :)
Officially CR or later is "ready to use", right? But that doesn't seem
to be a high-fidelity marker these days. I'm not sure how much it makes
sense to make up some other status marker that's unrelated to the W3C
Process. The CSSWG has its own set of phases, which are used on
   http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work
but I'm not sure they'd be relevant to other WGs.

>   Also, I don't love "Paraphernalia". How about "Use it" ? There should be a link for errata there as well
(when relevant).

I don't think "Use it" is an improvement, but Paraphernalia was
chosen to make people come up with better ideas. :P

~fantasai
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Ian Jacobs | 3 Jul 2012 23:21
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II


On 3 Jul 2012, at 4:07 PM, fantasai wrote:

> On 07/03/2012 12:50 PM, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>> 
>> Please include two more bits:
>> 
>>  * Superseded. There should be a visible indicator (and non-visible information as well) when a
specification has been superseded. This may happen
>>    as frequently as "with the publication of the next draft.")
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean here. Can you show me an example?

Sure:
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-owl-parsing-20040121/

> 
>>  * Ready to use? There should be an easy-to-find answer to that question up front. Where the answer is "Yes,
but..." there should be clues of how to
>>    get more detail.
> 
> The answer is "Yes, but..." in every case, isn't it? :)
> Officially CR or later is "ready to use", right? But that doesn't seem
> to be a high-fidelity marker these days.

I agree, and wanted to have a way for people to find easily any useful guidance about what is or is not yet
widely supported. That guidance might live outside the spec, so a strong clue and a link was what I was
looking for.

> I'm not sure how much it makes
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Robin Berjon | 5 Jul 2012 23:00
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

On Jul 3, 2012, at 23:07 , fantasai wrote:
> I don't think "Use it" is an improvement, but Paraphernalia was
> chosen to make people come up with better ideas.

No it wasn't, it was chosen because it's a lovely word that means exactly that!

--

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/ -  <at> robinberjon
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Liam R E Quin | 3 Jul 2012 22:44
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

On Tue, 2012-07-03 at 12:25 -0700, fantasai wrote:
[...]
> Here's the result:
>    http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/style/design/w3c-restyle/

and the template from Karl,
http://www.la-grange.net/2011/12/05/w3c-spec-status-prototype

> 
> There's a lot more metadata than what Karl had represented, so we
> couldn't do exactly his design, but we tried to get close.

I don't think Karl's design scales up to this much metadata. It works
only because it's simple.

It's great to see this moving forward.

Here are some specific comments:

(1) the table rules/lines are much more prominent in the brown-on-yellow
version than in Karl's. Hmm, no, wait, that's because you don't set the
background and text colour everywhere. Switching to different default
styles in the browser...
I'd lose some of these lines. Get rid of the vertical rule between
Editors and Daniel (all the way down).

(2) Daniel and www-style have extra whitespace in front of them.

(3) The text (both blue and grey) may be too light for WCAG 2
compliance, not sure. W3C has moved to a "faded by being in the sun too
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Tab Atkins Jr. | 3 Jul 2012 23:01
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Liam R E Quin <liam <at> w3.org> wrote:
> (4) The link to CSS WG is clutter at top right and should go. Karl's
> positioning made it clear that the document was produced by that WG,
> whereas this does not make that clear.

Something should probably go up there.  Karl's prototype had patent
info, but apparently that's not kosher.

> (6) I don't think crossing out former editors is appropriate - move them
> to an appendix perhaps. The text needs to be understood even when CSS is
> not applied, or when the document is printed, or read out loud. Agree
> it's cute though :-)

They're in a <del>, so that's definitely accessible.

> (8) There should be a copyright statement there, e.g.
> Copyright | W3C _details..._

There is one, down in the bottom.  This is the kind of boilerplate
that should stay out of the way and not be in the heading.

> (10) I like the limits on line length (I hope diagrams and tables can
> extend into the margins though!).

Yeah, if necessary.  We haven't found it necessary to exceed 800px in
any of the CSS specs that are already using that width.

> (13) a rule at the end of the document, perhaps with a "back to top",
> would make it clearer that the end of the document had been reached.
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Liam R E Quin | 4 Jul 2012 00:26
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II

On Tue, 2012-07-03 at 14:01 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Liam R E Quin <liam <at> w3.org> wrote:
> > (4) The link to CSS WG is clutter at top right and should go. Karl's
> > positioning made it clear that the document was produced by that WG,
> > whereas this does not make that clear.
> 
> Something should probably go up there.  Karl's prototype had patent
> info, but apparently that's not kosher.

Thanks for replying. Maybe a link to the corresponding W3C Activity so
people can find related specs? or to /TR ?

> > (6) I don't think crossing out former editors is appropriate - move them
> > to an appendix perhaps. The text needs to be understood even when CSS is
> > not applied, or when the document is printed, or read out loud. Agree
> > it's cute though :-)
> 
> They're in a <del>, so that's definitely accessible.

In that sense it is, yes, but the reason why they are deleted is not.

> > (8) There should be a copyright statement there, e.g.
> > Copyright | W3C _details..._
> 
> There is one, down in the bottom.  This is the kind of boilerplate
> that should stay out of the way and not be in the heading.

Yeah, I'd like a link from the heading to it. For us it might be
boilerplate but for readers it often isn't.
>
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Martin J. Dürst | 4 Jul 2012 06:36
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Re: W3C Spec Restyle Phase II (deleting authors/editors)

On 2012/07/04 7:26, Liam R E Quin wrote:
> On Tue, 2012-07-03 at 14:01 -0700, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Liam R E Quin<liam <at> w3.org>  wrote:

>>> (6) I don't think crossing out former editors is appropriate - move them
>>> to an appendix perhaps. The text needs to be understood even when CSS is
>>> not applied, or when the document is printed, or read out loud. Agree
>>> it's cute though :-)
>>
>> They're in a<del>, so that's definitely accessible.
>
> In that sense it is, yes, but the reason why they are deleted is not.

There are all kinds of reasons why somebody steps down as an 
author/editor. I'm also one of those affected (see 
http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod-norm/). But crossing these people out as in 
the proposed stylesheet, or marking them as <del>, doesn't feel right at 
all and kind of looks ridiculous. <del> works well for changes in 
versions that show differences, but not for final versions.

Regards,   Martin.
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