Re: Navigating an application

What you do, in a page, a web site, an application, is move around a set of
controls. For a web page they are a very small set (often "follow this
link" is the only one. My WAP browser doesn't even guarantte a back button,
although I find that very frustrating).

For a typical application, there are a number of different types of control,
(i.e. they do different things) but there may not be as many of each type.

More or less any application could be structured as a website, but in the
real world it may become very unwieldy, which is one reason why it doesn't
always happen. Likewise more or less any website could be presented as an
application - this is more or less what happens in the case of an interactive
flash or director application for example.

So whether you "use" or "navigate" something is largely a question of
perspective and fine shades of meaning - fine enough that they will often get
lost in common usage.

My 2 cents worth anyway. I have borrowed some from Al Gilman, but I don't
know if I said what he meant, so don't blame him if it doesn't make
sense. <grin/>

cheers

Charles


On Thu, 28 Sep 2000, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:

  We say that "navigation mechanisms should be provided for a page or 
  site".  I've added the word "application" to that.  In an application, this 
  is a menu bar, right?  However, do you "navigate" an application?  or do 
  you just use it?
  --
  wendy a chisholm
  world wide web consortium
  web accessibility initiative
  madison, wi usa
  tel: +1 608 663 6346
  /--
  

-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
September - November 2000: 
W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Thursday, 28 September 2000 13:03:07 UTC