In-market user agent proposal for ATAG2

Hi all,

On the meeting I took an action to send the in-market user proposal to the list with a bit more information and some examples where possible. The intent of A.3.7.1 already does a good job of explaining why we need the term "in-market user agent":
"The intent of this success criterion is to ensure that preview features strike a balance between giving authors with disabilities a more accessible means of previewing the web content that they are editing and not giving those authors an unrealistic impression of how end users with similar disabilities will actually experience that content in their own user agents (e.g., browser, video player) used in the market. In other words, it is not necessarily useful to present a user experience with content as a "preview" when it is much more accessible than the actual end user experience of the content would be in an in-market user agent."

Here is the proposal:

(1) The following changes will be made to the "User Agent" glossary entry:
User agent: Any software that retrieves, renders and facilitates end user interaction with web content (e.g. web browsers, browser plug-ins, and media players). The W3C recommends that user agents follow the W3C-WAI User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG). However, many software products combine user agent and authoring tool functionality can be combined in various ways, including:
+ Preview-Only: When user agent functionality can only render web content that it receives from the authoring tool functionality. Such preview-only features are not considered *in-market user agents*.
 + User Agent with Authoring Tool Mode: When user agent functionality must retrieve and open web content before it can be sent to the authoring tool functionality.
 + Combined User Agent/Authoring Tool: When the default mode of the user agent enables editing the web content. Such tools do not require previews because the author is already experiencing the content in the same way as end users (e.g., word processor-style editors, wikis).
- In-Market User Agent: A user agent that is not *preview-only* and that can be procured by members of the public (free or otherwise).

And the following entry will be changed: 
"previews: Views in which no authoring actions are provided (i.e., the view is not editable). Previews are provided to present the web content being edited by the authoring tool more or less as it would appear to end users of in-market user agents. Previews may be implemented using actual in-market user agents, but this is not necessary. See the definition of user agent for more information.

And the following will be added to note #5 in the introduction. 
"User Agent Accessibility Guidelines (UAAG) Overview (This will be of special interest to developers of "Combined User Agent/Authoring Tools" and "User Agents with Authoring Tool Modes").

Ed. Adding this near the top helps show that we have considered this case.



Cheers,
Jan

(MR) JAN RICHARDS
PROJECT MANAGER
INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE (IDRC)

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Received on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 15:29:45 UTC