ACTION-705: Create examples for Thematic Consistency, ISSUE-116: Thematic Consistency checking

During last week's call I took an action to look at this issue again. I 
originally did this in July 2006 (how time drags...) with a thread 
stating at [1]. This lead to a brief exchange of e-mails with Jo and 
Charles, as a result of which I offer the following tests for TC, only 
slightly revised since that time.

Of these, I would suggest that only no. 4 is a little grey.

1. Branding is identical. Any logos are the same (although size and 
position may vary).

2. Where provided, identical metadata, such as title, keywords and 
Description Resources, MUST be equally applicable irrespective of the 
delivery context. The specific exceptions to this are character encoding 
and MIME type where alternatives are delivered to give a better user 
experience on a particular device.

3. If a device accesses a URI that resolves to a resource that is not 
appropriate to it, it should be redirected to an appropriate device 
independent starting point. Such redirection may be offered as a choice 
to the user or, if it is automated, the user should have the option of 
reverting to the original URI.

4. If a resource has some functionality or service on one type of 
device, the same functionality or service must be available on the 
other, although it may be presented in a different way or require 
different input. A device may be redirected from the originally accessed 
URI to achieve this. If the functionality or service is only available 
in either a mobile or desktop context then a credible explanation must 
be given as to why this is so when accessed from the other class of device.

If these tests are OK, do we need to create examples? Maybe a screenshot 
of a desktop presentation of example.com (complete with a logo) and a 
mobile one, but with similar text. And then maybe keep the same desktop 
presentation but on the mobile one show something unrelated. Maybe the 
desktop is about gardening and the mobile one is just an ad for a florist?

But would such examples add to the document? Happy to do them if they 
would but it would be rather time consuming and the tests above may be 
sufficient on their own?

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/member-bpwg/2006Jul/0044.html

-- 
Phil Archer
Chief Technical Officer,
Family Online Safety Institute
w. http://www.fosi.org/people/philarcher/

Received on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 07:19:36 UTC