textonly view

Regarding
   
                       WAI Accessibility Guidelines:
                           Browser User Interface
          http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-WAI-UA-BROWSER

in section
                 
  4.5 Alternative Views of a Document
  
where it says

    3. [PRIORITY 2]
       Provide a "serialized", text-only view of page. This means no
       images, tables, applets, or anything that cannot be rendered as a
       stream of characters. All non-textual information is hidden and
       alternative text is used for images and other objects

specifically where it says "all non-textual information is hidden"

I might consider it preferable if this information were _minimized_
in this view, i.e. represented by a link.  If they are focusable
in the base view, then there should be a focus opportunity here, too.
Particularly if the focus-preservation-across-view guidelines are
met.

     _________________________________________________________________
   
5 Orientation Information

  5.1 Maintenance of Document View and Focus
  
    1. [PRIORITY 1]
       Remember the focus of each view so that when a user leaves a
       document and returns, the focus and view are restored. As a user
       activates links and returns to previously visited documents that
       their last view and focus in the document remain the same.

A small technicality: we need to distinguish two cases.  In one
the user returns by browser BACK function in which case the prior
focus and view should be re-asserted.  On the other hand, if the
user returns to a document visited earlier in the sesson by
following a link with a fragment indication appended to it
<foo.html#fragment> then the fragment indication governs the
initial scroll and focus of the document as opened.  In fact, it
would be friendliest to users of Braille and screen magnifiers if
the element whose NAME or ID matches the #fragment reference is
positioned at a standard location within the viewframe near, but
not quite at, the top of the viewing area.

Al

Received on Friday, 5 June 1998 16:26:25 UTC