Re: proposed change of language for common words

It is not any list -  it is a word frequency list for the context. There will be an explanation of how to build on as well as links to open source scripts.


When we wrote this and looked at different word frequency lists we found that 1500 is quite a large list, and included words like file"and translate  and it is only for specific contexts (such as sites for a given profession) that might need to have a specific list,
Globish, for example, is 1500 words.



All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Thu, 04 May 2017 22:14:34 +0300 Gregg C Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu> wrote ---- 

two points 

1) so how can I fail?
if I use less than 1500 different words in my navigation — and I compile a list of 1500 from my navigation elements — it will always pass be definition.   Any list?




if the list is a list I pick so that it covers the words I use — how does that help a user who doestn now those words? 




if you build it for URLs that are any reasonable size sites — you will find the most common words are mostly the same and look like     “of, the and with  because etc.     and it still won’t cover the technical terms.    and if it did — why are we assuming that users will know the technical terms on this website. 



I’m kind of confused as to the underlying model.   It looks like we are stretching our language to cover individual issues as they come up?


(we looked at plain language for a year and a half when doing WCAG 2.0   — and kept running into these same walls.  And we had John Slatin - a huge advocate for plain language as co-chair and lead on this in one of our rounds  (we actually took runs at this a couple times — bringing in plain language experts when we did.)    


this is a great topic — but we could not find a way to address it.  


I am hoping that we can soon create a plain language Assistive technology - that can take text and translate it into diffferent levels of plain language  like we translate between languages  — so that the same provisions that make all text available to other AT can make it available to plain language AT.   This also has the advantage that such assistive technology can take into account the words known by each user. and also the language level of the user







g
 
On May 4, 2017, at 2:51 PM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:

You can use any list for the context. There is a open source script for building a list from a list of URLS.


You can build an application using the  most-common form to refer to the concept  for this context in navigation element and controls.