This specification provides web content authors a standard approach to support web users who are persons with various cognitive and learning disabilities, including users who:

Customarily communicate using symbolic languages generally known as Augmentative and Alternative Communications (AAC);
Need more familiar icons (and other graphical symbols) in order to comprehend page content;
Benefit from additional help resources;
Require a simplified page in order to interact successfully.

The technology described in this specification is intended to be used to programmatically transform the appearance of typical web content including form controls, icons, and other user interface elements into a rendering more familiar and comprehensible to an individual user. Providing additional help is supported, as is automated page simplification. Use cases and relevant vocabulary terms are defined which allow user agents to augment or adapt content to better fit a particular user's particular needs. This helps users with varying needs to understand web content more readily, by simplifying the web interaction, and by avoiding forcing the user to grapple with unfamiliar representations they are ill equipped to comprehend.

This Personalization Semantics Content Module 1.0 is a component of the Personalization Semantics series introduced in the Personalization Semantics Explainer 1.0 document [[personalization-semantics-1.0]].

Introduction

Background

This specification module enables authors to add semantic information about content at the element level, in order to facilitate a more familiar or comprehensible interface for the individual user. Multiple screen renderings (transformations) are supported in order to meet the differing needs of different users. Final renderings — generated via helper apps or 3rd-party tools — are ultimately defined by the user's configuration settings.

The goal of the attributes and values described in this specification is to enable personalized communication and web content interaction for the individual user. This specification includes facilities to:

Transform the user interface (UI) through the addition, removal, or adaptation of content which otherwise tends to have a negative impact on Augmentative and Alternative Communications (AAC) users;
Provide extra support to the user;
Enable new adapted user agents for people with learning and cognitive disabilities.

Personalization Semantics is a series of technical specifications that provide the element-level attributes and values which enable user agents and helper-applications to adapt content to an individual user's needs. It relies on author-supplied page and element level metadata in order to achieve individualized personalization.

Personalization Semantics currently consists of three modules: Content, Help, and Support Tools. The specification defined in this document is the Personalization Semantics Content Module—the first of the Personalization Semantics Modules series.

Personalization Semantics is more fully introduced in our Explainer for Personalization and [[personalization-semantics-1.0]].

Personalization Semantics Content Module

Personalization Semantics Content Module is the first part of the Personalization Semantics technical specification, which provides personalization semantics and vocabularies that can be used to mark-up web content with additional semantic information, enabling user agents to augment or adapt content to various user-scenarios based on the user’s personalization settings or preferences. The Content Module enhances web content by providing additional information about form controls, buttons, links, and other user interface elements. User agents use these semantics to augment or adapt content to the user’s scenario — for example allowing for the conversion of text to symbols. This helps users with varying needs to understand the content by providing support for simplification and/or a way to manage unnecessary distractions.

Vocabulary Structure and Implementations

All the vocabulary in Personalization Semantics Content Module is constructed of properties and their values. Please see our our Explainer for Personalization Wiki.

The vocabulary implementations included in this document are available at our implementations wiki page.

Use Cases and Requirements

The Requirements for Personalization Semantics describes use cases and requirements. This module provides properties to fulfill those requirements related to adapting content.

Terms

Age Appropriate Forgetfulness (sometimes called “age related memory loss”): People with age appropriate forgetfulness have impaired memory issues that can be a normal part of healthy aging. They may take longer to learn new things, forget something but remember it later, or occasionally forget particular words. (This differs from dementia where forgetfulness is due to a disorder and is more pronounced.)
Alternative and Augmentative Communication System (sometimes referred to as “AAC”): Any method, device or app that can be used to help those who cannot use spoken language and need additional support by means of symbols, images and/or text. For example a screen with symbols that the user can select to speak the appropriate words or add them to a document.

We intend to incorporate additional terms from the glossary from the Cognitive and Learning Disabilities Accessibility Task Force, when it is ready. If there are non-editorial differences, we will use the term definitions above. See the COGA Glossary.

Privacy and Security Considerations

This specification adds context information about content to the document, and should not affect security.

Although this specification does not expose personal preferences and personal information, third party user agents or proxy server(s) acting upon our semantic information may need to store personal preferences on how to present content to a specific user. We recommend any user agent or proxy server implements best practices to protect all personal preferences and personal information.

Any user agent with user setting are recommended to follow best practices to keep user information secure.

The Privacy and Security Considerations of Personalization Semantics Content Module is also discussed at issue #131.