automatable guidelines

to follow up on what Charles said:
> 
>   ...  Let's work on the authoring tools and making sure that the
> accessibility ISVs are using the features provided by the browsers.
> 

There is not doubt that our best laid plans for accessible HTML
usage will be dust-on-the-shelf ware unless they are a natural fit
as defaults within the leading authoring tools of the sighted
majority.

You will see that philosophy being applied, for example, in the
discussion of table browsing leading up to and following the post

  w3c-wai-hc@w3.org from October to December 1997: the "balloon help" gambit

  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-hc/1997OctDec/0010.html

On the other hand, dealing with the tools of the majority is not
enough.  The universal Web has to be accessible to writers as
well as readers.  For the foreseeable future that means that the
HTML language has to make sense as a medium of exchange between
people authoring in WYSWYG and people authoring in source text,
as discussed in

  Status of ACSS action item on 02 July 1977

  http://www.access.digex.net/%7Easgilman/web-access/ACSS/status1.html

This means that the usage guidelines need to work in both contexts,
too.

-- Al Gilman

Received on Thursday, 30 October 1997 17:19:34 UTC