Re: Edits to 3.1 and 4.3

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the comments!

I have integrated your comments into my new draft at:
http://jan.rcat.utoronto.ca/public/auwg/guidelines.html

(but: note success criteria 3 for 3.1 now appears as success criteria 2 of 4.1 
as per a decision made on the last call)

I will also respond to a few of your comments here (I'm removing the rest of 
the text for the sake of readability.

-----

Quoting Tim Boland <frederick.boland@nist.gov>:

> --accessibility(link to def?)--
>   information(vague term?)

JR: "Accessibility information" is a defined term currently meaning:
Accessibility information is any information that is necessary and sufficient 
for undertaking an accessible authoring practice. This information may 
include, but is not limited to, equivalent alternatives.


> 3. The --authoring tool(link to def?) --must always provide at least one 
> option to the --author(link to def?) (via alerts, prompts?) to "mark" (how 
> is this testable?) "less accessible" (how is this objectively measurable?) 
> "choices" (of what?), prior to the completion of all --authoring 
> actions(link to def?) --related to those choices.
> 
> NOTE: I believe WCAG techniques documents are non-normative, so cannot use 
> non-normative example in a normative success criterion statement -- maybe 
> pick another example?

JR: Yes, the WCAG techniques are non-normative but the actual act of having a 
WCAG techniques document for a format is a normative requirement - of ATAG 
2.0, checkpoint 2.1. 


> 1. Any --authoring tool "process" (what is this?  is it defined?) that 
> --"imposes" (meaning?
> no author control?)--a sequencing of --authoring actions(link to def?)--, 
> must always integrate
> (into what?  ambiguous word? maybe use "provide" instead? 
> )  --accessibility(link to def?)--
> --prompting(link to def?)-- to the --author(link to def?)--prior to 
> completion of the last --authoring action (link to def?) -- of the
> sequence.
> 
> (NOTE: Why is accessibility prompting needed for the sequencing?   What 
> purpose does it serve,
> and how is it related to the sequencing?    What if the author doesn't need
> 
> accessibility prompting?    I think this success criterion is unclear on 
> this point..)

JR: The background here is that we would like prompting to occur as early in 
the authoring workflow as possible - so the author doesn't end up 5 minutes 
before a publishing deadline and suddenly be prompted about a bunch of 
problems. At the same time, we don't want to be overly constraining on 
developers and demand prompting at every hint of a problem (e.g. some tools 
may be designed to handle issues in batches)

So...what would a success criteria for this look like? For tools like 
Dreamweaver that allow the author to perform any authoring action at any time 
it's difficult to see a clearly defined moment for requiring prompting other 
than the end of authoring. On the other hand, tools that force the user to 
follow a strict sequence (either for the whold process or just for part of the 
process - e.g. creating an image map to drop on to a page) it seems reasonable 
that we can require any relevant prompting to occur before that sequence ends. 

The reason I specified "earliest *completion point of the process*" is because 
developers may be tempted to make accessibility the last step in the sequence 
and then have a "Finish" button prior to that step (which is something we want 
to prevent).

-------

I hope that helps!

Cheers,
Jan

Received on Friday, 5 November 2004 21:54:45 UTC