Re: Updated Mobile-Accessibility documents

At 06:42 AM 24/10/2008, Shawn Henry wrote:
>The final version of "Shared Web Experiences: Barriers Common to 
>Mobile Device Users and People with Disabilities" has been published 
>at: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences> ...

Perhaps the document should be re-titled: "Failure to Share Web 
Experiences: Lack of Commonality by  W3C Committees a Barrier to 
Mobile and Web Accessibility". ;-)

This document was disappointing. From the title I expected a list of 
barriers and then perhaps suggested ways to overcome them for both 
mobile users and those with a disability. But what I got was an 
artifact from a dispute between two groups of standards writers. This 
is of little interest, or value, to those who want help designing web pages.

If the mobile and accessible standards writers can't agree on common 
standards, then it would be better to be honest about it and make 
that clear, rather than obscuring the fact in complex technical 
language. Web designers should be clearly told that the standards 
makers have failed to agree and so the rest of us have to sort out it 
out as best we can.

A document which lists the differences and similarities between the 
mobile and accessibility standards is of use, but it should have a 
title which reflects that is what it is. This should not be dressed 
up as something more than it is.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington@tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

Received on Friday, 24 October 2008 00:14:28 UTC