At 12:11 1998/05/25 -0700, William Loughborough wrote: 

>>>>

<excerpt>So here's the opening salvo of my shot at Section 10. Any
comments or 

even notification of awareness of receipt? 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<


Good start. So what's a YAG?  Yet another goodie?

>>>>

<excerpt>


Following the general site design guidelines will further improve
accessibility. 

<paraindent><param>left</param> * 


</paraindent></excerpt>Use a clear, consistent navigation structure.

        *

<excerpt><paraindent><param>left</param>

</paraindent>Offer navigation bars for easy access to the navigation
structure.

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

Trivial editorial: need consistent treatment of bullets. [I'm surprised
by

this new style of replying to a message in Eudora, it does some violence
to

prior formatting. Sorry about that.]


Recommend navigation bars that have properly separated text, or images
containing appropriate alt text.

>>>>

<excerpt>

If your tool provides a "pre-production planner" that explains the need
for designing a website to be user-friendly (accessible) it should
include certain templates, especially a stylable "look and feel" to
provide consistency of navigation methods within all documents created
with the tool. 

  

<paraindent><param>left</param>* 


Provide a description of the general layout of the site, the access
features used, and how to use them.

 * 


Offer a site map.

</paraindent>

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

Not all site maps are accessible [one from Trellix is a set of small
beads

strung together on a graph with major topics as nodes. Some few of the
beads

have alt text. Tabbing steps through some but not all nodes. The tabbing
order

is not the visual order of the beads. A tool tip explains nodes when the
user

dwells on it.]

>>>>

<excerpt>

Whenever a site is produced by your Authoring Tool it should (unless
trivially small) be organized by either author- or tool-generated site
description and map. This will enable easier accessibility, particularly
for first-time visitors. An easily (intuitively?) navigable site is a
comfortable site.

<paraindent><param>left</param> * 


Offer different types of searches for different skill levels and
preferences.

</paraindent>

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

User choice would allow placement of sitemap arbitrarily top, left or
right side,

below, or even indirectly requestable?

>>>>

<excerpt>

If the author is to include a search facility it should be possible to
use it without having a degree in database search techniques. 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

I'd edit below:  An author interacting with the site or URL produced by
your tool

should not need to switch frequently between pointer and data entry
modes.

>>>>

<excerpt>It is important to remember that whenever someone must interact
with the site produced by your tool that they don't need a lot of
switching between pointer and data entry mode. 

  

<paraindent><param>left</param>* 


Ensure that nothing within the site prevents keyboard operation.

</paraindent>  


</excerpt><<<<<<<<

     * Likewise, nothing within the site prevents voice command or
entry.

>>>>

<excerpt>

It is important that those

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

Scratch above.

Those

<excerpt>>>>>

who prefer to (or must) use the keyboard for navigation instead of a
mouse are also customers of the Web site your customers are designing. 

<paraindent><param>left</param> * 


Ensure that text and background colors or patterns contrast well. (A good
test is to print your page to a black and white printer).

</paraindent></excerpt><<<<<<<<

Avoid reds and greens to convey information. These are the most common
problems

for color-blindness.

>>>>

<excerpt><paraindent><param>left</param>

</paraindent>

Both the style sheet editor and the preview functions of your tool should
have an "example box" 

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

. It should contain samples of all the defined styles in each of their
contexts where appearance may differ. These will allow the author to
know

>>>>

<excerpt>so that the author will know

</excerpt><<<<<<<<

delete "so that the author will know"

>>>>

<excerpt> what her users will be up against when attempting to view
yellow on white, etc. 


</excerpt><<<<<<<<

Regards/Harvey Bingham