Re: proposed change of language for common words

Following on to Gregg's questions:

   - How will that word list be discover-able? (Does it need to be? - I
   presume yes for testing / compliance-verification purposes)

   - Is the requirement then also mandating that the word list be made
   publicly available from the affected site? How? Where?
   (For example, is the Task Force contemplating something like <link
   rel="wordlist" href="path_to_wordlist">, after registering a new @rel value
   here: http://microformats.org/wiki/existing-rel-values?)


If I have a website that focuses on Shakespearean English, I could likely
generate a frequency list of 1500 words of "Shakesperean English" which,
without a corresponding Glossary, would be quite meaningless to numerous
users (and not just users specifically dealing with COGA issues).

In all of his work – the plays, the sonnets and the narrative poems –
Shakespeare uses 17,677 words. Of those words, Shakespeare ‘invented’ an
incredible 1,700 of them! (
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-words/)


> It is not any list -  it is a word frequency list for the context.

I'm sorry Lisa, but I'm still not seeing the actual benefit of generating a
word frequency list - as Gregg notes
​,​
that list could be unique for each of hundreds of sites.

Can
​the COGA-TF
 detail the direct correlation between providing a word frequency list and
how that benefits users with some forms of cognitive disability - I really
am trying to understand. Thanks.

JF



On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 12:16 PM, Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu>
wrote:

> that was my point
>
> If each site creates its own list — then how does that help the reader?
>  are they supposed to look at each unique list and then learn the new words
> on it before viewing the site?
>
> Does this mean that you have only to limit the unique words in your
> navigation to 1500 unique words?
>
>
>
>
>
> *g*
>
> Gregg C Vanderheiden
> greggvan@umd.edu
>
>
>
>
> On May 5, 2017, at 12:05 AM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:
>
> 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 <http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Thu, 04 May 2017 22:14:34 +0300 *Gregg C
> Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu <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.
>
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion