Re: proposed change of language for common words

Hi John

the Shakespeare site would fall under the exception. If that is not clear we can explain it further in the write up.


frequently used words are the words that a person with a communication disorder are more likely to know. This is true also in professional domains such as programming or engineering where some of the terms may not be in a core vocablery for the language  but will be known to people with a communication disorder who are working in the profession. It  makes it possible for professional sites to conform and people with cognitive and learning disabilities to work in that profession or field, including as they age. 
I will try and discuss it more on the call.


How will that word list be discover-able? you have some good ideas there John - I think once we agree on the principle we can decide as a group if we want to require that the lists are discoverable form the site or only referenced in a compliance


All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Fri, 05 May 2017 21:21:38 +0300 John Foliot<john.foliot@deque.com> wrote ---- 

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, 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. 

























-- 
John Foliot


Principal Accessibility Strategist

Deque Systems Inc.

john.foliot@deque.com



Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion