requirements for "Beginners lexicon for WAI documents"

Dear EOWG colleagues,

Here is the fifth draft of the requirements for "Beginners lexicon for
WAI documents".
Some changes in the introduction and the audience description we last
week discussed.

To think about:
In the approach section we are stating on how we will collect the
entries for the lexicon, but not clear to me is the relation with the
W3C-Glossary entries. Are we intending to take just entries from the
W3C-glossary and making a short, easy accessible lexicon by 'copy and
past' if possible and rewording the explanation in clear and plain
language if needed. Or do we only take the W3C-Glossary entries, which
should be reworded. Or do we also take words or concepts presently not
in the W3C-Glossary.


Regards,
Henk Snetselaar


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Requirements for a "Beginners lexicon for WAI documents"


Status of this document
This is a fifth draft of the requirements for a "Beginners lexicon for
WAI documents" (June 11, 2004)

Introduction
The Education and Outreach Working Group is considering composing an
"explanation for complex WAI terms" using clear and plain language,
containing only approximately 30-40 most common words or concepts. This
as an aid to translators and other people living in different regions or
countries, being familiar with different synonyms of word or concepts
used in WAI documents.

The WAI has a glossary of terms at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/Glossary/printable.
The purpose of that glossary is to allow comparison of definitions, and
potentially to provide a single glossary for all the accessibility
guidelines. The various WAI working groups and individual readers of
more than one guideline will benefit from a consistent use of terms.
The WAI glossary contains more then 500 words in total. 


Primary audience
- Translators of WAI documents 
- Readers living in different regions or countries, being familiar with
also different synonyms of word or concepts used in WAI documents.

Secondary audience
- Readers of WAI document not yet familiar with web accessibility and
its terms. 

Purpose
The purpose of a "Beginners lexicon for WAI documents" is to aid
translators by describing the meaning of (technical) terms with a 'WAI
contextual meaning' used in the WAI documents. 
An additional purpose is to aid people from various regions and
countries to understand differently used wordings of accessibility
issues. This lexicon will contain only 30-40 most common words or
concepts; there should be no confusion with the WAI glossary.

Approach
To decide what words should be in the lexicon the following approach
will be used:
- Words not findable in a general dictionary and/or;
- Words with a (WAI) specific or contextual meaning and/or;
- Words with different synonyms in different regions or countries.

The Words will be explained in clear and plain language.

Scope
The documents from which the lexicon entries will be drawn will be
selected by a combination of parameters being:
- Documents with known translation problems;
- Documents that are downloaded most according to W3C web site traffic
statistics;
- Documents being in the priority list for WAI document translation.

Process
The process of selecting and taking in words and explaining their
meaning for the lexicon will be as follows:
1. Words will be taken from existing glossaries;
2. The explanation of the words in question will be examined for the
use of clear and plain language;
If the explanation does not have clear and plain language and should be
altered:
a) Concerning words drawn from documents that are not yet completed; by
deliberation another explanation will be discussed with the relevant
working groups.
b) Concerning words drawn from documents that are already completed, an
alternative, clearer, explanation will be proposed.
c) Concerning words drawn from documents that are already completed,
and appear in multiple documents, an alternative, clearer, explanation
will be proposed that combines the intention of the two definitions.


Content 
The lexicon will contain:
- Entry: word or term
- Origin: context or document(s) containing the entry
- The explanation

Format for Listings
Basic format:
Word or term [context or document(s) containing the word]
Explanation


Some examples:

Device-dependent [WCAG20] 
Used to describe event handlers that require a specific kind of input
device. For example, onDblClick requires a mouse; there is no keyboard
equivalent for double clicking. Input devices may include pointing
devices (such as the mouse), keyboards, Braille devices, head wands,
microphones, and others. Output devices may include monitors, speech
synthesizers, and Braille devices. Scripting should be
device-independent or provide multiple input and output options for
different devices.

Audio Description also called described video or video description
[UAAG10]
An audio description (called an "auditory description" in the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10]) is either a prerecorded
human voice or a synthesized voice (recorded or generated dynamically)
describing the key visual elements of a movie or other animation. The
audio description is synchronized with (and possibly included as part
of) the audio track of the presentation, usually during natural pauses
in the audio track. Audio descriptions include information about
actions, body language, graphics, and scene changes.

Captions [UAAG10] 
Captions are text transcripts that are synchronized with other audio
tracks or visual tracks. Captions convey information about spoken words
and non-spoken sounds such as sound effects. They benefit people who are
deaf or hard-of-hearing, and anyone who cannot hear the audio (e.g.,
someone in a noisy environment). Captions are generally rendered
graphically superimposed ("on top of") the synchronized visual track. 
The term "open captions" generally refers to captions that are always
rendered with a visual track; they cannot be turned off. The term
"closed captions" generally refers to captions that may be turned on and
off. The captions requirements of this document assume that the user
agent can recognize the captions as such; see the section on
applicability for more information.
Note: Other terms that include the word "caption" may have different
meanings in this document. For instance, a "table caption" is a title
for the table, often positioned graphically above or below the table. In
this document, the intended meaning of "caption" will be clear from
context.

Cascading Style Sheet (s) [High-Tech] 
Style sheets describe how documents are presented on screens, in print,
and even in spoken voice. Style sheets allow the user to change the
appearance of hundreds of Web pages by changing just one file. A style
sheet is made up of rules that tell a browser how to present a document.
Numerous properties may be defined for an element; each property is
given a value.

Content [ATAG10] 
In this specification, the term "content " is used in two ways: 
1.	Content refers to the document object as a whole or in parts.
Phrases such as "content type", "text content", and "language of
content" refer to this usage. When used in this sense, the term content
encompasses equivalent alternatives. Refer also to the definition of
rendered content and other accessibility information. 
2.	Content refers to the content of an HTML or XML element, in the
sense employed by the XML 1.0 specification ( XML, section 3.1): "The
text between the start-tag and end-tag is called the element's content."
Context should indicate that the term content is being used in this
sense.


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H. Snetselaar
Bartimeus Educational Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted
Utrechtseweg 84, 3702 AD  Zeist, the Netherlands
Tel: +31-(0)30-6982211 or +31(0)30-6982350
Fax: +31-(0)30-6982388
E-mail: H.Snetselaar@bartimeus.nl
Website: www.bartimeus.nl and www.accessibility.nl
Zie voor disclaimer (Read our disclaimer):
www.accessibility.nl/disclaimer.html 
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Received on Thursday, 17 June 2004 05:57:34 UTC