The Order of Checkpoint Priorities

Hi,

If the Guidelines are to be intended in order of Priority in the future, is
it worth addressing this issue now, or when they are more refined?

I feel they could better address the nature of structured web development by
reordering them.  There can be an advantage to reorder them in helping to
prioritize the issues for communicating and identifying the major issues in
the development of Web Content, as applied to Accessibility.

The current list has Guideline 1 in this order

1. Checkpoint 1.1 Provide a text equivalent for all non-text content.
2. Checkpoint 1.2 Provide synchronized media equivalents for time-dependent
presentations.
3. Checkpoint 1.3 Use markup or a data model to provide the logical
structure of content.
4. Checkpoint 1.4 Identify the primary natural language of text and text
equivalents and all changes in natural language.
5. Checkpoint 1.5 Separate content and structure from presentation.

If I read this document for the first time I would place more importance on
each preceding checkpoint just by natural association of logic of an ordered
list.

I feel the following list puts these checkpoints in a better order of
priority; it conveys the importance of each stage in addressing web
development and project life cycle issues related to accessibility.

1. Checkpoint 1.1 Use markup or a data model to provide the logical
structure of content.
2. Checkpoint 1.2 Identify the primary natural language of text and text
equivalents and all changes in natural language.
3. Checkpoint 1.3 Separate content and structure from presentation.
4. Checkpoint 1.4 Provide a text equivalent for all non-text content.
5. Checkpoint 1.5 Provide synchronized media equivalents for time-dependent
presentations.

This seems a more logical approach.  First you are taking a look at the
whole site and its content and saying; 1) apply the correct markup and data
model to structure the whole content. Next; 2) Identify the primary language
of the content.  Next; 3) Separate content and structure from presentation.
Next; 4) Provide a text equivalent for all non-text content. And 5) Provide
synchronized media equivalents for time-dependent presentations.

If we are trying to present these checkpoints in a manor for people to learn
and develop their web skills and knowledge, isn't this a more logical model?
Doesn't it also give some guidelines on how to construct and order your
approach to web development in a methodical manner?  This may not seem like
the place to discuss web project strategies, but I feel this is what this is
addressing regardless.  And it needs to be presented in a way that web
developers can take and apply to projects.  It makes more sense as
methodology or guidelines one can implement within projects.

If you were teaching this to web designers, wouldn't this also be the type
of approach to take, first, you are taking the view of the whole site and
content, then refining the issues more and more, as each is actually
somewhat a subset or precursor to the preceding one.

Geoff Deering
http://www.acslink.aone.net.au/gdeering/

Received on Tuesday, 8 January 2002 05:52:56 UTC