CA04 - 3.2

This comment is associated with the Summary of GL3.2. Will try to parse to
match SCs...couldn't match to SCs. Discussed inline.

CA04: Suggestion :
Filling in information is much slower and harder for people with cognitive
disabilities. Therefore:
Information should be easily retrievable such as via automatically saving
the work so far. The user should be able to go back a step without losing
what they have submitted.
** Discussion: Saving current work depends on the webapplication/form. The
sounds more like an author design requirement, not a browser requirement.
The user can always save a page with it's content. However, getting the
saved information from the saved form into a new active form sounds
complicated (lots of copy and pasting). Not sure how this would work in
practice on a banking or purchasing form...save a partial transaction,
return to it, and complete the transaction...to me sounds like lots of
security issues, and sessionid issues, etc.
Propose: not accepted.

People with cognitive difficulties often have very low confidence in the
accuracy of what they are submitting and therefore the ability to review
and amend easily is important. Also authors and agents should never try to
confuse the user. For example, the users original selection / choice /
offering should be selected by default not switched to the item they want
to up-sell , such as expensive options being placed before the cheaper
option that the user thinks they are selecting. (Obvious but worth spelling
out anyway...). An example of this would be AVG antivirus that switches the
user to premium edition and leaves it to the user to switch back.
**Discussion: this sounds more like a marketing complaint. I have to
wrestle with this type of marketing presentation all of the time. It is
annoying and tiresome. Not sure how the browser can enforce any kind of
non-marketing rules, or 'fair' business practices. Can't make the web
authors or product vendors follow them, the browser certainly will not be
able to do this.
propose: not accepted

We would like to include: The original offering/selection should be
selected by default and should not be switched automatically to an
alternative
If this is not acceptable maybe include:
Label any alternatives clearly
Make it easy to select the original offering: The original offering should
be positioned above or next to the alternative
The original offering should be sized the same or bigger then the the
alternative
In the future we may have the semantics that would make it possible to
handle this as an adaptive interface at the user end. If this becomes
possible then it would be an acceptable alternative to make sure the
original selection can be programmatically identified.
**Discussion: this sounds like usability. The product sellers have arranged
the content base on user studies to maximize 'conversion'. If and when
semantics are available, and authors use them; browsers may have control
over the display of the semantic elements. Until then, browsers cannot
control this type of information.
Propose: not accepted.

-- 
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator & Webmaster
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315    fax: 512.206.9264  http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964