Editorial comments on "Shared Web Experiences: Barriers Common to Mobile Device Users and People with Disabilities"

Hi,

Reviewing "Shared Web Experiences: Barriers Common to Mobile Device
Users and People with Disabilities" as of August 29
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences-new.html
I noted the following points that might be worth fixing:

The titles of the common barriers are not worded consistently
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Most are purely nominal phrases, but some use full sentences (e.g.
"Focus (tab) order does not match logical document content sequence");
for sake of consistency, it would probably be worth making them all
nominal sentences (e.g. "Inconsistency between focus (tab) order and
logical document content sequence).

Most describe problems, but a few are more ambiguous: "Information
conveyed using color" should probably say "Information conveyed solely
with color".

Comment on "Free-text entry"
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The Mobile Context should probably also mention that the user often
doesn't have a full keyboard (requiring several key presses for entering
text), and several distinct text entry modes.

Comment on "Embedded non-text objects"
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The Mobile Context should probably also mention that many mobile
browsers have a much more limited support for non-text objects formats.
It should also link to 
[OBJECTS_OR_SCRIPT] Do not rely on embedded objects or script.

Comment on "Important information in non-text content"
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Instead of just "device has no CSS support", say "has no or limited CSS
support" (the latter happen much more often than the former).

Comment on "Information conveyed only using CSS (visual formatting)"
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Given that CSS is taken into account in "Important information in
non-text content", this one seems redundant; I suggest either to merge
them, or to remove the CSS aspects from the previous one.

Comment on "Interaction and navigation requires mouse"
--------
On requiring the mouse, that barrier should mention:
 * [IMAGE_MAPS] Do not use image maps unless you know the device
supports them effectively.

The description of the barrier is actually somewhat broader than its
title ("wastes time moving through numerous links"); if that's intended,
there are more best practices that are relevant to that item:
 * [NAVBAR] Provide only minimal navigation at the top of the page.
 * [BALANCE] Take into account the trade-off between having too many
links on a page and asking the user to follow too many links to reach
what they are looking for.
 * [ACCESS_KEYS] Assign access keys to links in navigational menus and
frequently accessed functionality.

The context should also then mention: "On some mobile devices, the user
needs to go through each link sequentially" (or something along that
line).

Comment on "Special plugin required"
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"Plugin turned off or not installed;" should probably also mention "not
available for the user device" since that's again the most likely case.

Comment on "Link text not descriptive"
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Should probably also mention "LINK_TARGET_FORMAT".
The introductory description of the barrier seems to mix mobile-specific
("User incurs delay and cost, due to network charges and device
limitations") and accessibility specific views ("becomes confused or
disorientated when arrives at inaccessible content"). This probably
should be put under each context, with a more generic introduction
("User does not have enough information to decide to follow a link, or
gets unusable content when does").

Comment on "Content blinks, moves, scrolls or auto-updates"
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It should probably also mention:
 [IMAGES_SPECIFY_SIZE] Specify the size of images in markup, if they
have an intrinsic size.
(since its goal is to avoid page re-flowing)

Typos
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* In "Multimedia with no captions", "Mobile users often turn off sound
in public places (trains, hotel lobbies) turn off sound;" has an
extraneous "turn off sound".

HTH,

Dom

Received on Friday, 29 August 2008 13:50:53 UTC