Re: Critiques of Techniques

Here are my comments on the techniques documents.

Neither section 5.2 Text equivalents in the general document nor section
7.1 Short text equivalents for images in the HTML Techniques seems to allow
for alt="" or alt=" ".

General comment about structure of the set of documents....
The links for each checkpoint in the general techniques document sometimes
link to sections that cover more than one checkpoint. It is often unclear
which techniques must be used to satisfy a particular checkpoint. This is
an issue if the "set" of checkpoints are of mixed priority level. A web
site author trying to meet all priority 1 checkpoints will have trouble
identifying which techniques must be used to satisfy a particular
checkpoint. For example:
Checkpoint 5.1 is a priority 1 checkpoint. In the General Techniques
document, there is one HTML technique link for this checkpoint, to Tables
of data, section 5.1, in the HTML Techniques document. But the Tables of
data section starts off by listing 2 priority 1 and 2 priority 3
checkpoints that are covered by the techniques in the section. The
techniques, however, are not grouped by checkpoint. If authors are trying
to meet the two priority 1 checkpoints, how do they determine which
techniques to use?
Quick fix suggestion:
Move text beginning with "Content developers may make HTML 4 data tables
more accessible...." through "...Refer to [WAI-ER} and the following
section on creating linearized versions of tables @@link." to the end of
the section. This moves the priority 1 techniques to the beginning of the
section.
Reword the paragraph that begins "For information about table headers..."
to "For information on specifying row and column headers (checkpoint 5.1),
refer to ..."
Add a paragraph prior to the two examples: "The following examples
illustrate two techniques for associating data cells and header cells
(checkpoint 5.2)."

HTML Techniques Section 4.1.1 Images used as bullets includes two
guidelines that begin with "avoid" doing something but if you do do it, you
should provide a text equivalent for the bullet image. Do we infer that in
all other cases, we don't need to provide a text equivalent for the bullet
image?

HTML Techniques Section 6.1 Links includes a paragraph that begins "If two
or more links refer to different targets but share the same link text,
distinguish...." I think we should discourage this practice. Suggest
changing wording to "Avoid using defining multiple links on a page with the
same link text that refer to different targets. If links to different
targets must share the same link text, distinguish ...."

Minor editorial comments on the general techniques document...

Should 5.15 Audio information, 5.16 Visual information and motion, and 5.17
Collated text transcripts really be sub-headings under 5.14 Audio and Video
or is there more content planned for section 5.14?

Some Glossary terms are strictly definitions while others include
guidelines. Specifically,
- Depracated has one paragraph of definition followed by a second paragraph
on guidelines
- Device independent provides rationale, guidelines, and an example but no
real definition of device independent
- Equivalent has some guidelines embedded throughout it
- Image map contains a guideline as the first sentence of the third
paragraph.

In the Glossary definition for Style sheets, there is a definition of
Presentation markup. Is this really part of the style sheets definition or
should Presentation markup be separated out as a separate term?

Andi
andisnow@us.ibm.com
IBM Accessibility Center - Special Needs Systems
(512) 838-9903, http://www.ibm.com/able
Internal Tie Line 678-9903, http://w3.austin.ibm.com/~snsinfo

Received on Thursday, 13 July 2000 18:35:17 UTC