

action item: 3.1 Ls SC1 proposal

From: Lisa Seeman <lisa@ubaccess.com>
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2005 11:31:40 +0200
To: W3c-Wai-Gl <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Message-id: <ABEAIGDDLALMIBFJDPGDEEADCBAA.lisa@ubaccess.com>
This is a proposal from Yvette Bengt and  myself with some help from Gregg

change: A mechanism is available for finding definitions for all words in
text content.
to: A mechanism is available to determine the meaning of each word or phrase
in the content

The difference is that the user can pinpoint the intended definition, and
not just point to a set of possible definitions. Ambiguous words are a big
problem for people with cognitive disabilities, pointing them to a set of
definitions doesn't help them and only puts more of a burden on the author.

If we do want to include a SC about finding definitions of words, it should
be about the exact definition and not a set of definitions.
Guide information
Ambiguous use of language creates problems with translation,
misunderstandings and accessibility for cognitive disabilities.Translation
to symbolic languages or simpler language for cognitive disabilities can not
be automated.

Use of a  controlled language solves this problem but restricts author's
ability to stylize and express them-selves. Referencing textual content,
it's meaning becomes unambiguous, translatable and machine-readable without
restricting the author's use of language.

(Note I need to double check the techniques. I they are not edited until the
group approve the SC, In general they need more full examples - I volunteer
to do that if the SC is approved)

Also  -- if the group like this then I can also add more techniques on how
to use cascaded dictionaries, which speeds it up)


The total text is based on a controlled vocabulary such as VOA's or
BLISS(for cognitively disabled) in which case that the complete text can

be marked with which dictionary it is based on.

(This is regularly done with translation services and their TM (translation


CCF is a technique to access the meaning and also to access alternative

vocabularies that may be languages or symbols sets.

See  www.conceptcoding.org



<link rel="definitions" scr="mysite.com/my-prefered-usages.html">

<link rel="definitions" scr="mysite.com/my-page-usages.html">

<link rel="definitions" scr="dictionary.com/dictionay1.html">

You can then add an inline link to any usages that change the rules. With
Css classes these links need not be rendered unless requested by the user

XHTML 2.0 technique usage examples
<span role="_:Jon">He</span> has brown eyes.

5, XML technique usage examples

 Any word or phrase or even a part of a word in the content can be
pointed to by an xpointer and a reference to the meaning or the

dictionary where it is defined in can be given.

RDF  technique usage examples
In the following examples rdf is used to provide a link a phrase or word to
a definition. This makes the text unambiguous.

<rdf:Description rdf:about="xpointer to text"type

< ub:lexicon >wordnet/~wn/consept#10293829</ ub:lexicon >

</rdf:Description >

a summary and picture. This makes the text understandable.

<rdf:Description rdf:about="some xpointer to obtuse legal paragraph" type

<ub:AlternativeContent >



"x"> <rdf:li><ub:summary value="we own you from now on"></rdf: li>

"x"><rdf:li><ub:nonTextvalue="picture_of_ slave_in_chains.gif"></rdf:li>


</ub:AlternativeContent >

</rdf:Description >

Language specific notes:
The Dutch language has two features that make it potentially more complex
than English:

 1 There are a lot of foreign (English) words and phrases. Not all of these
will be in the Dutch dictionary but you could point to both a Dutch and
English dictionary or other method to determine the meaning.  This would not
be a problem for 3.1 L3 SC 1.

2  The Dutch glue words together to form new ones (we  can create words like
'swordmakersworkshopdoorhandle'). These words will not be in a dictionary
and their meaning cannot be programatically determined unless you hand-code
every instance. I don't think we want to require that so that is a problem
with your proposals. Their  meaning can be determined manually using a
dictionary though. You just try to look up the whole word and if you don't
find it, look for the longest bit that is in the dictionary (swordmaker),
and then look up the rest the same way. You have to know the rules about
glueing them together (adding the extra 's') but people who know Dutch know

Pointing to a dictionary that has the 'base' words would conform to this SC.
Even though the meaning of combined words is not programmatically
determinable, the user will have a mechanism to find out their meaning.

Swedish, is similar, but any new combination that does not exist is not
valid  until listed in SAOL (Swedish Academy wordlist). Any new compound

word in Swedish is easily recognized, due to the strict rules of their
making.  A new Swedish Associative Lexicon has been made (by a researcher)
and it

resembles wordnets where the different meaning carrying part has typed
relations such as hypernyms with different weights depending on the

major/minor meaning carrying part. This is only about compound words.

In  Hebrew there are seven diactric marks that alter the vowel sound of a
character and also its meening. Hebrew sites can point to on online decode
to determine the diactric marks. In cases where the automated guess is
incorrect enough diactric marks need to be added to enable the correct
automated decoding of the word.

This example is a CMS ( content management system) that has been expanded
with conceptcoding:


click on user preference in the bottom and check any language and a  symbol

This only works on browsers that implements Ruby Annotations correctly sofar
in IE some info is placed in the wrong places.

Firefox works with the following plugin:

http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_rubysupport.html.en#download  enabled.


All the best

Lisa Seeman

Received on Tuesday, 1 November 2005 09:34:05 GMT
