Issue #13

<comment>
The expression "conveyed through presentation" is not defined, and
therefore open to divergent interpretations. If, for example, an
implementor decided that "presentation" could be construed as meaning
"auditory presentation provided by a speech-enabled user agent", and it
turned out that very few aspects of the structure of the content were
conveyed in an auditory presentation, then it could be concluded, contrary
to the purpose of the guidelines, that almost none of the structure need be
programmatically determinable.
    I can think of two alternative ways in which the concept of "conveyed
through presentation" could be more precisely defined.
 1. Any aspect of the information or structure that is evident from the
presentation of the content, in any modality, must be able to be
programmatically determined.
 2. Any aspect of the information or structure for which the author
provides presentational hints to the user agent, must be able to be
programmatically determined. Presentational hints may include style
parameters, visuaL formatting (layout, font changes, etc.), audio
formatting (parameters to control a speech synthesizer) and other aspects
of the content designed to influence its presentation in one or more
sensory modalities.
      I think the second proposal is the more practicable solution as it
doesn't leave authors wondering what might be apparent in a presentational
context with which they are unfamiliar, that needs to be made
programmatically determinable.
Proposal: Rewrite the success criterion, add a note to it, or rewrite the
definition of "presentation" to clarify the requirement in accordance with
the problem raised and the solutions suggested above, or indeed any other
solution that addresses the lack of clarity in the current text.
</comment>

AS: I see no Bugzilla issues on this. I don't think "presentational hints"
is quite accurate either. Presentational hints to user agents would always
be progammatically determinable, wouldn't they? But if you code lists using
a dash or asterisk followed by a line of text, that's not programmatically
determinable. I suggest a slight modification to the definition of
"presentation". From

"rendering of the content and structure in a form that can be perceived by
the user"

to

"rendering of the content and relationships in a form that can be perceived
by the user"

and changing the SC from

"Information and relationships conveyed through presentation can be
programmatically determined, and notification of changes to these is
available to user agents, including assistive technologies."

to

"Information and relationships conveyed through presentation in any
modality can be programmatically determined, and notification of changes to
these is available to user agents, including assistive technologies."

Andi

Received on Monday, 15 May 2006 19:45:05 UTC