[Clarifications] Content focus, Visual Text

Hello,

Eric Hansen and I just spent some time discussing
content focus requirements in the 8 July 2002 UAAG 1.0 [1].

I would like to propose the following clarifications,
for the next draft. Please indicate whether you have
any objections.

Thank you,

  _ Ian

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-20020708/

1) Checkpoint 9.1 starts:

    "1. Provide at least one content focus for each viewport
    (including frames) where enabled elements are part of the
    rendered content."

    When a viewport includes no enabled elements (whether
    a particular piece of content doesn't include enabled
    elements or the format never allows interactivity),
    content focus requirements of the following checkpoints
    don't apply:  1.2, 5.1, 5.2, 5.4, 6.6, 7.1, 9.3,
    9.4, 9.5, 9.6, 9.7, 10.2, 10.6, 11.5.

    For instance, the content focus highlight requirements
    of checkpoint 10.2 don't apply when there is no
    content focus.

    I would like to add a normative exclusion to 9.1
    that states this.

    Eric and I discussed whether a "ContentFocus" label
    would be useful, and we concluded it would not, as
    it would not provide useful information to someone
    reading a claim. It would only be used to tell someone
    that a user agent doesn't support interactivity at all
    for a format, which says more about the format
    than about the user agent.

2) Checkpoint 5.1 reads:

    "1.  Allow configuration so that if a viewport opens without
     explicit user request, its content focus does not automatically
     become the current focus."

    Since a viewport may open that does not have a content focus,
    this checkpoint should read:

    "1.  Allow configuration so that if a viewport opens without
     explicit user request, its content focus or user interface
     does not automatically become the current focus."

3) In checkpoint 11.5, provision 1, the term "focus" should be
    replaced by "content focus" for clarity. The other parts
    of the sentence make it clear that content focus is intended.

4) We recently removed the VisualText conformance label
    since we felt that any user agent that renders text visually
    has to satisfy checkpoints 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3. For
    user agents that don't, they can invoke applicability.

    Eric and I propose to re-instate the VisualText label (for
    the above checkpoints) and treat it like the Selection label:

     * If the UA renders text content visually, the user agent
       must satisfy those checkpoints. This is a little more
       "transparent" than relying on UA developers to invoke
       applicability.

     * For audio/speech-only user agents, a developer can
       opt out of those checkpoints by reference to the label.

    This change does not affect conformance, but I agree with
    Eric that having an explicit label (required as soon as
    the UA renders visual text) is probably better than
    relying on the applicability clause.

Also:

  - I will add a link from the definition of "content focus" to
    checkpoint 9.1.

  - Eric and I reviewed chapter 3 (Conformance) and have some
    ideas for simplifying it. These changes will appear in the
    next draft.


-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Friday, 26 July 2002 12:56:05 UTC