Explanations of the background to EN requirements
We've discussed this before, but I felt it useful to have an Issue where we can capture the thinking rather than leave it in the "oral history".
Some of the requirements can seem arbitrary to people who were not involved in the (sometimes lengthy) discussions that resulted in them.
This can lead to conflict or objections based on a lack of context.
We should therefore endeavour to document our reasoning where this seem appropriate of helpful. Certainly not for everything, but for those where the reasoning may not be sufficiently obvious.
While we can do this to some extent with notes within the EN, it might be better to have this published outside of the EN for a number of reasons:
- Avoid the EN growing any larger than absolutely necessary
- Allow us to publish updates of the explanations as questions emerge
- Free us from completing the explanations in the same timeframe as the EN
My suggestion is that we plan for an explanatory/informative ETSI TR to cover this, wholly owned by ETSI and under control of TC HF rather than the JTB so as to minimise bureaucracy and process for publication.
We could start drafting this as a "skeleton" document right now, and capture things to go into it without worrying too much about completeness or good editing at this time, just as a repository of key decisions and justifications of them.
This document could also describe our working/thinking process, the POUR concepts, the need for objectivity and testability of requirements, the problems of conflicting requirements, reminders of the need to consider deaf-blind and other disabilities often overlooked, etc.
We might even include a discussion of the challenges we face around design for cognitive disability and thoughts for the future.