revision to 7.6 & priority levels of 8.4 & 8.5

aloha, all!

based on the discussion at today's supplemental teleconference, i would 
like to propose the following, which i believe to be in line with the 
consensus reached at the 26 september 2000 telecon

BEGIN PROPOSED REVISION TO 7.6
7.6 Allow the user to navigate efficiently to and among important 
structural elements identified by the author. For markup languages with 
known semantics, allow forward and backwards sequential navigation to 
important structural elements. For other markup languages, allow at least 
forward and backwards sequential navigation of the document object, in 
document order.

    Note: Structured navigation of headings, tables, forms,
    lists, etc., is most effective when available in
    conjunction with a configurable view. Therefore, the user
    should be able to configure and control which structural
    navigational elements he or she wishes to move to, as
    outlined in Checkpoint 8.5. User agents should follow
    operating system conventions for indicating navigation
    progress (e.g., selection or content focus).

    Note: In HTML 4 [HTML4], the list of important elements
    is: A, ADDRESS, BUTTON, FIELDSET, DD, DIV, DL, DT, FORM,
    FRAME, H1-H6, IMAGE, INPUT, LI, MAP, OBJECT, OL, OPTGROUP,
    OPTION, P, TABLE, TEXTAREA, and UL. In SMIL 1.0 [SMIL],
    the list of important elements is: a, anchor, par, seq,
    and switch. In SVG 1.0 [SVG], the important elements are
    a and g.
END PROPOSED REVISION TO 7.6

additionally, i would propose to raise the priority level of 8.4:

quote
8.4 Make available to the user an "outline" view of content, composed of 
text labels for important structural elements (e.g., heading text, table 
titles, form titles, etc.). The set of important structural elements is the 
same required by checkpoint 7.6. [Priority 2]
    Note: This checkpoint is meant to allow the user to simplify the
    view of content by hiding some content selectively. For example,
    for each frame in a frameset, provide a table of contents composed
    of headings (e.g., the H1 - H6 elements in HTML) where each entry
    in the table of contents links to the heading in the document. This
    checkpoint does not require that the outline view be navigable, but
    this is recommended; refer to checkpoint 7.6. For those elements
    that do not have associated text titles or labels, the user agent
    should use generate a brief text label (e.g., from content, the
    element type, etc.).
unquote

from priority 2 to Priority 1; as for checkpoint 8.5

quote
8.5 Allow the user to configure and control the outline view of checkpoint 
8.4 to include and exclude element types. [Priority 3]
    Note: For example, allow the user to configure the level of detail
    of the outline. Refer also to checkpoint 8.4 and checkpoint 5.4.
unquote

i propose to raise from Priority 3 to Priority 2

why?  not only is it important to provide a pseudo-gestalt view for anyone 
incapable of perceiving the spatial/graphical relationships between 
components of the page without having to listen to the page in its 
entirety, it is essential that such a user be able to make practical use of 
the outline/pseudo-gestalt view.  moreover, it endows the user with the 
ability to dip a toe into the water to see whether or not it is (a) safe to
swim, (b) whether or not the page is the proper pool in which to dive, and 
(c) whether or not repair needs to be performed upon the page with which 
the user is attempting to interact.

gregory
------------------------------------------------
The optimist thinks that this is the best of all
possible worlds; the pessimist knows it is.
------------------------------------------------
Gregory J. Rosmaita     <unagi69@concentric.net>
       Webmaster & Minister of Propaganda
The Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group of
the New York City Metropolitan Area (VICUG NYC)
      <http://www.hicom.net/~oedipus/vicug/>
------------------------------------------------

Received on Tuesday, 26 September 2000 14:45:01 UTC