Re: HTML5 Authoring Conformance Study

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Leif Halvard Silli <
xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no> wrote:

> Shelley Powers, Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:27:48 -0500:
> > On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 10:21 AM, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> On Mar 21, 2010, at 7:38 AM, Shelley Powers wrote:
> >>
> >>  I may be wrong, and it's up to Sam to correct, but I didn't get the
> >>> impression that Sam's acceptable solution is to remove all authoring
> >>> conformance requirements. I thought, and Sam correct me if I'm wrong,
> that
> >>> he was asking for the rationale behind the authoring conformance
> >>> requirements. If there is no rationale for some, or many, then the
> >>> authoring conformance requirement is based on one person's opinion.
> >>
> >> I think Sam has been very clear that removing all author conformance
> >> requirements would be one solution that is acceptable to him, though not
> >> necessarily the only solution.
> >
> > Yes, I imagine there is no rationale for any of them, then the only
> course
> > to take is removal.
>
> When it comes to @alt, then one of the constant requests from the
> accessibility side has been that guiding about how to use it should be
> that which is found in WCAG and its techniques. Such a think could be
> good, because currently, WCAG lives its own life - few authors are
> aware of it. By removing all accessibility authoring conformance
> guidelines from the 'text/html' specification, then we would increase
> the attention to WCAG. I can understand the request to have /some/
> guidelines in side the 'text/html' specification. E.g. I, in theory,
> understand the wish to have just /one/ document to look at. However, as
> long as the 'text/html' only covers some of the guidelines anyway, then
> one needs to look in the WCAG docs anyhow.
>
> Sam has also suggested, a few weeks ago, that the accessibility side
> considered if all accessibility guidelines was moved to a separate
> document. At the very least, I am open to such a thing.
>

I think a good accessibility guidelines document as part of this group's
deliverables would be a good thing...but wouldn't necessarily be a
replacement for the conformance rules (existence of/lack of) within the
HTML5 specification.

I would think a guidelines document to be more along the lines of a
Primer--providing solid and consistent advice on how summary can be used
effectively, when to use alt text, when to leave the alt attribute empty,
how to provide accessible content for the Canvas element, and so on.

Rules, though, should stay in the HTML5 document. If not having any alt
attribute is a conformance violation, then it should continue to be a
conformance violation in the HTML5 spec. How the alt tag can be used
effectively, with good examples, would be better in a guidelines document.

Maybe a better option is just a good, general purpose authoring
guideline/Primer -- authoring in this case not being tools, but people
creating pages. Sort of like taking Mike's document, and adding flesh to the
bones.

We could probably move a 15-20% of the existing HTML5 specification to this
new document. And it would provide clarity as to audience, too, instead of
the mixed audience problems we have now. It would be another document, but
it's better to have several smaller, tightly focused, cleanly demarcated
documents, than one big mishmash of a thing that crashes browsers when you
access it.

I don't know if this is what Sam had in mind or not. Just stuff I've thought
about as I've gone through the HTML5 spec recently.



> --
> leif halvard silli
>

Shelley