Re: Templates and use cases

Hi All,
Sorry I missed the teleconference. I feel that the problem problem probably 
starts with the wording of section 2

Requirement 2a “ During this step the common web pages of the website and 
templates available to the evaluator are identified and documented. "

It is not the actual templates that we are interested in but how they are 
applied. I think they would be better described as Elle calls them  - 
"templated areas". Some CMS such as Dreamweaver helpfully leave comments in 
the code naming the template and the area. Where this is not available it is 
often easy to work out from the <div> IDs. Using this makes it helpful for 
the developer as we can say -'in template XYZ there are the following 
errors..' and then concentrate on the main content area of relevant pages.

Regards
Richard


From: Alistair Garrison
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2012 6:18 PM
To: Elle ; Detlev Fischer ; Eval TF
Subject: Re: Templates and use cases

Hi Detlev,

To my mind there is true value in having evaluators having access to the 
templates.

Lets say that your first move when evaluating is to quickly evaluate and 
repair the templates - correcting alt missing type issues, etc... and then 
having them put back into the live site.

By doing this simple move, when you come to run your automated tools over 
the site - instead of picking up ever page due to the recurring errors in 
templates you only pick up those pages which have other errors...

Hopefully making the whole process smarter and more efficient...

Otherwise, I'd mirror what Elle said.  I think we need to work 'smart' - by 
utilising information that already exists and by drawing on the knowledge of 
the evaluation commissioners.

It is important to recognise that we do not need to turn over every stone 
during an evaluation... Really, just enough to conclusively show if success 
criteria have been failed.

I'd be super happy if the evaluation commissioner provided a full site map 
(in the sitemap.xml protocol), use cases for all major functions and empty 
templates for all page types - just by doing this they would save me so much 
time and effort...

Hope this helps

Alistair

On 19 Apr 2012, at 17:37, Elle wrote:

Detlev:

I think, as you mentioned later in your email with use cases, that templates 
provide a good starting point. They are only part of the picture for an 
evaluator, but they represent an efficient way to start the evaluation 
process. Using templates and reporting on them as such allows an evaluator 
to identify common elements needing correction in a way that communicates 
well to the website owner.  It's how he or she already views the site in 
question. As you say, it's not at all a replacement for evaluating live 
content and its interaction within the template, but it reduces the 
redundancy of page-level testing.

When we remediate our websites, we look first for common elements, often 
templated elements. Then, we look on a page level basis. If, on the page 
level analysis, we see that an interaction needs to change because of the 
conflict with template and page components, we can decide whether to change 
the template or the page content itself.  That's a decision that's harder to 
make if we don't view these as separate items, I believe.


Regards,
Elle







On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Detlev Fischer 
<detlev.fischer@testkreis.de> wrote:
Hi list,

just two points that cam to mind after today's teleconference:

(1) Templates

The text now (in Step 2a)  talks about "The common web pages of the website 
and templates available to the evaluator"

For templates that just cover a part of the web page (e.g. portlets), some 
aspects of conformance depend on their place in the context of the overall 
page - think of 1.3.1 and 2.4.1 (heading levels), 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence, 
etc. I wonder what the evaluator will actually *do* with the templates 
provided by the commissioner - if they are empty or out of page context, a 
complete evaluation seems impossible or of doubtful value. But this may not 
be intended by the description - not sure. Many observations (potential 
fails) also result from interactions between template and content on a real 
page.

I am not against taking stock of templates per se, just not sure what added 
value that would bring and how they would be assessed outside a normal page 
context. Thoughts?

(2) Use cases

In cases where evaluations of web applications are commissioned by clients, 
checking the use cases provided is certainly a good starting point. It's 
just important to also go beyond documented use cases, especially regarding 
error handling and unexpected user actions, to capture violations.


-- 
Detlev Fischer
testkreis - das Accessibility-Team von feld.wald.wiese
c/o feld.wald.wiese
Borselstraße 3-7 (im Hof)
22765 Hamburg

Tel   +49 (0)40 439 10 68-3
Mobil +49 (0)1577 170 73 84
Fax   +49 (0)40 439 10 68-5

http://www.testkreis.de
Beratung, Tests und Schulungen für barrierefreie Websites









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Received on Thursday, 19 April 2012 18:39:25 UTC