Requirements for Accessibility Description Language (ADL?)

This is a first list of questions re  requirements for an "accessibility 
description language", based on the discussion in the joint ER/AU meeting [1]

This can be an outline for item 2 of our Monday telecon [2]

- what shall we call this?  How about "Accessibility description Language" 
(ADL).

To which of the following should it apply?

  XHTML
  Any XML application, e.g. SVG?
  HTML
  HTML with syntax errors (what severity of errors can be allowed?)
  CSS
  ECMA Script
  Other programming languages
  CDATA

What level should description point to?  Characters? Tokens? Tags?  ("tags" 
is html and xml specific... what about other parsable languages?)

Shall we include application testing specifications, e.g. a description of 
steps
   activating a link
   filling in a form
   submitting a form
in addition to accessibility in the result?

Include summary statistics in output?

Combine results of different tools?  Retain what tool said what?

Include history of what was checked (e.g. "this alt text is OK according to 
a human")

How robust in face of changed source?  I.e. if source changes, how much of 
previous description can carry over?

How scalable? Just pages?  Whole site?  Results of several independed 
processes running on site?

What tools will read output?
    - evaluation tools
    - authoring tools

Is output useful for user agents?

What list of checkpoints to point to?  Where maintained?

files could be distributed in several files... in one file...  so human 
readable

What variations in input cause no change in  pointers?
    added white space? Case?  attribute order?

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-er-ig/2000Nov/0015.html
[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-er-ig/2000Nov/0017.html
--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple 
University
(215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

Received on Friday, 10 November 2000 17:01:49 UTC