Re: Comments on 8 December AUGL

Detailed responses scattered through - look for IJ: and CMN:

I have agreed with a couple of the suggested changes and disagreed with a
number of them. Unless thereis an important clarification gained I have
tended on the side of not making changes - we could change the wording for
ever to improve clarity, and it would be nice to settle it where it seems
sufficiently clear.

Charles McCN

On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, Ian Jacobs wrote:

  Hello,
  
  I reviewed the 8 December AUGL although I realize there has been
  at least one draft since then. However, I don't think any of my
  edits concern what has been added (I need to verify).
  
  Please note that while this email is somewhat long, my comments
  are mostly proposals for editorial clarification (including
  clarification
  of text in several checkpoints). I think Issue 1 is the only exception, 
  and that involves coordination with the UA Guidelines.
  
  Issue 1) Section 1.3 (Conformance to these Guidelines).
   
    Form 1 describes what information must be made available in a detailed
    conformance claim (AUGL version, conformance level, checklist, etc.).
    In the UA WG, we have been discussing ways to deliver this information
    (this was discussed at the 10 December UAGL face-to-face in Austin as
  issue
    136).  would like the methods used by the AU Guidelines and UA
  Guidelines
    to be the same, even if details of the claim vary slightly. 
  
    Proposed: In Form 1, explain that the information required for the
    claim (the bulleted list) may be provided in the software
  documentation or
    on the Web. In the latter case, the claim would be accompanied by a
  URI to
    the claim information on the Web.
  
    [1] http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear.html#136
  
CMN: Sounds like a trivial issue to me, and a sensible idea to converge.

IJ:  Issue 2) Editorial change to checkpoint 2.2: change "inform" to "alert".
  
     Old text: "If markup generated by the tool does not conform to W3C
     specifications, inform the author."
  
     The term "alert" is well-defined, while "inform" is not. The term
    "alert" is defined as "draw the author's attention to an 
     event or situation." Invalid markup is a situation.

CMN: I agree with this proposal
  
IJ:  Issue 3) Checkpoint 3.3
    a) In the Note, it is not clear that "movies" are movies that come
       with the tool. I propose adding the word "prepackaged" before
  "movies".
    b) Make "auditory descriptions" plural in the Note.
  
CMN: I agree with these proposals.

IJ:  Issue 4) Checkpoint 3.4: Both the checkpoint and note are unclear to me.
    Old text: "Do not insert automatically generated or place-holder
              equivalent alternatives."
  
    a) The term "automatically" is redundant since "generate" in this
       document means the tool created the content on its own.
  
    b) "place-holder" is not clear to me and is not explained in the
       Techniques document. I don't think it's necessary because either:
           1) The tool generated the place-holder and therefore it's
              subsumed by "don't generate equivalent alternatives", or
           2) The tool is reusing a previously authored equivalent. In
              this case, the requirement may be "Don't reuse
              previously authored equivalents without confirmation 
              from the author."
  
    c) The first example in the checkpoint note is unclear 
       and should be deleted.
  
    Proposed new checkpoint text and note:
  
      Checkpoint 3.4 Do not generate equivalent alternatives. Do not reuse
                     previously authored alternatives without author
  confirmation.
  
       Note: For example, prompt the user for a text equivalent of an
  image. If
             the author has already provided a text equivalent for 
             the same image used in another document, offer to reuse that
             equivalent and prompt the author for confirmation. Refer also
  to
             checkpoints 3.3 and 3.5.
  
CMN: I disagree with the proposal (but I also consider it editorial, so I
will talk to the editors unless there is a response that this is an issue)

IJ  Issue 5) Proposed edit to checkpoint 3.5
  
     Old text: Provide a mechanism to manage alternative information for
               multimedia objects, that retains and offers for editing 
               pre-written or previously linked equivalent
               alternative information.
  
     New text: Allow the author to manage, edit, and reuse alternative
               equivalents for multimedia objects. 
    
         Note: These alternative equivalents may be packaged with the
               tool, written by the author, retrieved from the Web, etc.
  
CMN: I disagreewith the proposal

IJ:  Issue 6) Checkpoint 4.5
   
     Old text: "Allow the author to transform presentation markup that is
                misused to convey structure into structural markup, 
                and to transform presentation
                markup that is stylistic into style sheets."
  
    I don't understand "presentation markup that is stylistic". 
    Isn't that what "presentation markup" means? I propose dropping 
    "that is stylistic".

CMN: I disagree with the proposal. I agree that the language may be
understood as tautological, but it seems also to be useful clairfication for
some people.
  
IJ:  Issue 7) Checkpoint 5.1
  
     Old text: "Ensure that functions relatd to accessible authoring
                practices are naturally integrated into the tool."
  
     a) I think "features" or "functionalities" would be better than
       "functions".
     
     New text: "Ensure that features related to accessible authoring
               practices are naturally integrated into the tool."
  
     (Ian Note: I am tempted to suggest "into the user interface" as a
      more specific substitute for "into the tool." But I think I'll 
      be shot down.)
  
CMN: I don't see a need to change the word functions, although I would
support using the term "user interface"

IJ:  Issue 8) Guideline 7 rationale question:
  
     Old text: "When custom interface components are created it is
                essential that they are accessible through 
                standard access mechanisms."
  
     What are "standard access mechanisms?" How do they apply to custom
     controls?
  
CMN: Standard access mechanisms are the ways in which access to UI controls
is done normally. When creating a custom interface component it is possible
either to give them the same access methods, or to rwite special access
methods for them which may result in assistive technologies not being able to
make use of the "standard mechanisms".

IJ:  Issue 9) The note after checkpoint 7.2 should be deleted.
  
    Text about being able to author with one style and publish with
    another appears three times:
  
     a) Paragraph 2 of Guideline 7 rationale
     b) Checkpoint 7.2
     c) The note after 7.2 (which offers little more information than the
        checkpoint.
  
    Proposed: Delete the note after 7.2
  
CMN:In tis case I don't think the text hurts. I disagree with the proposal.
(I haven't commented on the other editorial things)

IJ:  OTHER EDITORIAL COMMENTS and SUGGESTIONS
  
  Edit 1) Text about accessibility of content and acessibility of the UI
          appears at least four times in the document:
  
    a) First sentence of the abstract
    b) First sentence of the introduction
    c) First sentence after the bulleted list of the introduction
    d) First sentence of the paragraph after that (which is the third
       paragraph)
  
    I propose deleting two instances as follows:
  
    a) Abstract: no change.
  
    b) Delete the first sentence of the Introduction. [NOTE: If the first
       sentence is, for some reason, not deleted, change the first
  instance of
      "designed to help" to "explain to authoring tool developers 
      what must be done to.."
  
    c) Delete the first sentence of the third paragraph. Edit the second
       sentence to read: "To achieve these goals, authoring tool
       developers must ensure conformance to accessible standards ..." 
  
  Edit 2) Paragraph three of Introduction: change "rather than directly
          reproduce" to "rather than reproducing".
  
  
  Edit 3) Do a global replace: capitalize "Techniques Document"
  
  Edit 4) In the last bullet of second list of 1.1, before
  [WAI-AUTOOLS-TECHS],
          write "the Techniques Document".
  
  Edit 5) In the definition of Relative Priority, after the first instance
          of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, include the acronym
  WCAG
          (with appropriate HTML markup as well). 
  
         Still in the relative prirority definition, put commas around
  "without it"
         in the first example.
  
         in the paragraph after the example, change "Web Content
  Guideline" to
         WCAG
  
  Edit 6) In checkpoint 2.1, put a comma after "where possible".
  
  Edit 7) In Guideline 3 sentence one, hyphenate "well-structured" and
  remove
          comma from after "information".
  
  Edit 8) In Guideline 4 rationale, paragraph two change "help authors to
  feel"
          to "help authors feel".
  
  Edit 9) In Guideline 5 rationale, change "different ways to achieve the
  same thing"
          to "different ways to accomplish the same task".
  
  Edit 10) In the definition of "Alternative Information", put "WCAG"
  before 
         [WAI-WEBCONTENT].
  
  Edit 11) In the definition of Attribute, delete the markup 
           example and move it to the Techniques. It doesn't explain
  anything
           as is.
  
  Edit 12) In the definition of Auditory Description, start the second
  sentence
           with "Auditory descriptions" instead of "They".
  
  Edit 13) Change definition of "Conversion tool" to:
  
           "A conversion tool is any application or application feature 
            (e.g., "Save as HTML") that  transforms
            convent in one format to another, and in particular
            a markup language."
  
  Edit 14) There's a source document bug in the definition of "Check for".
           Also, "guess" needs a space afterwards and "linearided" is
  misspelled.
  
  Edit 15) Delete the second sentence of "Editing view" since it's about
           views in general, not just editing views. Possibly moved with
  edits
           to the definition of View.
  
  Edit 16) In "Markup Language", change "HTML" to "HTML 4.0". 
  
  Edit 17) In the definition of "Prompt", remove the reference to
  "alt-text"
           since that term is never defined. Instead, edit to refer to
           text equivalents.
  
  Edit 18) In the definition of Property, change "the name of the element"
           to "the type of the element". Also, change the last word of the
           definition from "element" to "entry" since it's talking about
           databases.
  
  Edit 19) There are two missing glossary headers in the Guidelines:
           "Rendered Content" (mistakenly part of "Property") and 
           "user-configurable schedule" (mistakenly part of "User agent".
  
  Edit 20) In the definition of "Transformation", remove the phrase about
           what conversion tools do and just link to "conversion tools". 
          
  
  Cheers,
  
     - Ian
  
  -- 
  Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
  Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814
  Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783
  

--Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                    http://www.w3.org/WAI
21 Mitchell Street, Footscray, VIC 3011,  Australia (I've moved!)

Received on Sunday, 12 December 1999 23:48:28 UTC