PDF Techniques

  Hi all

First off thanks for making me welcome to the group. Please feel free to 
drop me a line and tell me about yourself/strike up a conversation off 
list - happy to answer any questions about myself as well.

Secondly, I apologise if I was a little hazy or off my game at this 
mornings call - I was working on around 1 hours sleep (little one has 
croup so not much sleep for Mum and Dad).

Anyway - I was thinking more about the PDF Techniques under development 
- I must confess that I didn't realise they were at a first cut point - 
I assumed this had been something that the group had been working on for 
a while when I answered "approved". Having seen and heard the other 
comments, I would tend to agree when the direction taken at the meeting.

Which leads me to the point of this e-mail. One of the issues 
highlighted was around the audience of the Techniques - should they be 
aimed at a degree of assumed technical knowledge, or should they be 
usable by the "man in the street" etc.

That in mind, I'd like to put forward the potential offer of usability 
testing - the organisation I work for (but please note by way of 
mandatory disclaimer, my involvement here as a public member in no way 
implies that I speak for them, or policy etc. All views are my own etc.) 
produces around 10,000 or so PDF publications a year, and we have 
thousands of staff with Adobe Acrobat Pro installed, as well as a 
considerable number of Livecycle copies in the hands of staff as well. 
User abilities range from dedicated web publishers and print designers 
used to working with PDF on a daily basis through to public sector 
employees who have trouble using the "save as..." of Word.

I'd be happy to take any Technique developed to a draft state for 
approval through a, as (and if) required, short (week long?) test phase 
with users who are at the ability the group or authors deem a Technique 
is aimed at. This would not test against any level of compliance or SC 
(which is inferred by the technique itself of course), but only be a 
measure of how easy and/or useful the technique is to users of varying 
levels as a source of feedback.

Just some thoughts.

Cheers

-- 

/*Chris Beer*/

/Invited Expert (Public Member) W3 eGovernment Interest Group & W3-WAI 
WCAG Working Group/

//

/Coordinator - Better Practices in using Technology to Delivery 
Government Services Online - eGovernment IG Task Force/

//

/EM: chris@e-beer.net.au <mailto:chris@e-beer.net.au>/

/TW: @zBeer <http://www.twitter.com/zBeer>/

/LI: http://au.linkedin.com/in/zbeer/