Proposed Reordering of UA Guidelines

Hello,

I received an action item to review the order of the guidelines
and propose a new order based on importance. Here are  some
of the criteria I used for sorting:

  i) Number of high priority checkpoints in the guideline
 ii) Semantic grouping of related guidelines
iii) Rough division in two groups:
        a) Reduce inaccessibility
        b) Promote accessibility
     Perhaps the (a) group is more important than the (b) group. 
     Note that this is only a rough notion.

Here's the proposal:

1) Support input and output device-independence 
  [All priority 1 checkpoints]

2) Ensure keyboard access to user agent functionalities 
  [This one is related to device-independence and so the first two
should
   be close.]

3) Ensure user access to document content 
  [This one might follow the next two, but seems very
   important since it's about availability of content.]

4) Allow the user to turn off features that may reduce accessibility 
  [Lots of Priority 1, but this is because the ideas are finely
   grained.]

5) Ensure user control over document styles 
  [The previous two should be close]

6) Observe system conventions and standard interfaces 

7) Support applicable W3C technologies and guidelines 
  [Should be close to previous one]

8) Provide navigation mechanisms 

9) Help orient the user 
  [The previous two should be close]

10) Notify the user of document and view changes 

11) Allow the user to configure the user agent 

12) Provide accessible product documentation and help 
   [Still important, but someone has to be number twelve!]

 - Ian

Reference Document:
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WAI-USERAGENT-19990809 
-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel/Fax:                     +1 212 684-1814

Received on Tuesday, 24 August 1999 10:40:47 UTC