RE: Dynamically generated page content tests

I'm sorry I missed last night's meeting.

It's rather late in the day to add to this, but it occurs to me that while
this section allows that it may be impractical to test all the permutations
of pages generated dynamically from a database, and suggests testing
templates separately from content, perhaps we should consider testing the
content independently of the templates.

I suggest declaring in an authoring tool whether or not a field can contain
mark-up or not. If it can't (like date or customer name for example) then
there's no need to test it. If it can (like a news story), it would be
feasible to create a test viewer to systematically test all the content in
that field (in every row), at least those aspects for which the
accessibility is independent of the template. Differentiating the content on
markup would reduce the work load enormously.

I don't think that it's justifiable to slacken the rules for testing marked
up content just because it comes out of a database. After all, using the
dynamic architecture is a way to make more efficient use of developer
resources; some of those resources should be used to check the content more
thoroughly.

I realize that authoring tools probably don't support this but it could be
included described in an abstract way.
  a.. Distinguish between fields containing marked up content and those with
plain text only.
  b.. Fields that contain only plain text can be assumed not to cause
accessibility problems
  c.. Fields containing marked up content may cause accessibility problems
and should be tested:
    a.. Evaluate the relationship between the content and the enclosing
template (ie, navigation, formatting), and investigate any accessibility
issues
    b.. Check all the content for accessibility problems in a test page
I also suggest moving the first point ("if all dynamic content cannot be
evaluated... test the output"), to the end, as its a catch-all condition to
be used as a last resort.

Alan Chuter
achuter@teleservicios.com
Fundosa Teleservicios (ONCE Foundation), Madrid, Spain
ONCE (Spanish National Organisation of the Blind)


-----Mensaje original-----
De: w3c-wai-eo-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-eo-request@w3.org]En nombre de
Chuck Letourneau
Enviado el: miercoles, 26 de junio de 2002 18:16
Para: Harvey Bingham; EOWG
Asunto: Re: Dynamically generated page content tests


Hi Harvey,

I have attempted to incorporate (most of) your suggestions into the
Evaluating Web Sites for Accessibility document.  See Section 4 at
http://www.starlingweb.com/wai/eval2.htm#dynamic

I added them as sub bullets under (I think) the appropriate bullets.
However, I am not entirely sure this level of detail is appropriate for this
document.  Perhaps the group could discuss this on the Wednesday or Friday
call.

Regards,
Chuck


 At 14/06/02 09:58 AM, Harvey Bingham wrote:


Here are some thoughts on assessment of dynamically generated page content:

1. Does the content of every dynamically generated page have consistent
content
with respect to accessibility? If so a single sample can suffice. If not,
seek
consistent classes that represent these differences for testing?

2. Does generated content drawn from database meet accessibility
requirements for
all images, alt texts, and if needed the longdesc? [require these in
database.]

3. Does the generated tab order from the template allow getting to the
generated text
content effectively?

4. Do generated data tables have accessibility aids: captions, ids on th
header cells
and axis idrefs in th data cells?

5. If generated video, is it captioned?

6. If generated audio narrative, is textual equivalent available?

Regards/Harvey Bingham