Rationale for 1.3.1 SC changes from "structure" to "relationships"

John definitely did some research before proposing the change to SC 1.3.1 
to include "relationships". 

John's proposal and rationale for changing the 1.3.1 SC text  is at [1]. 
The proposal was,  "Information and relationships conveyed through 
presentation can be programmatically determined. ". 
The survey on the change is at [2].  Removing "structure" from the SC 
addressed  issue #1863 [3]. 

The change to the 1.3.1 text  was accepted at the March 9, 2006 call.  A 
Team A survey[4] proposed removing 4.1.3 (The label of each user interface 
control in the Web content that accepts input from the user can be 
programmatically determined and is explicitly associated with the 
control.) if change to 1.3.1 was accepted.  This didn't seem to be 
discussed on March 9.

At the March 16 meeting the 1.3.1 SC was changed to the current version 
of, "Information and relationships conveyed through presentation can be 
programmatically determined and notification of changes to these is 
available to user agents, including assistive technology. ".  This change 
was proposed by team A in the survey at [5].  The wording proposed by team 
a is different than what was actually resolved.  The rationale for the 
change was, "Rationale: In reviewing 4.1.2, it became clear that it is now 
important to not only determine the values, but also to know if they 
changed. This is automatic with HTML (which is why we didn't notice it 
before).".

Thus, my two cents is that I'm not sure the 1.3.1 text should be changed 
to use structure rather than relationships.  Yes, using structure would be 
more consistent with the Guideline wording but I think John's rationale 
for using relationships is valid:  "Rationale:Guideline 1.3 encourages 
authors to "Ensure that information and structure can be separated from 
presentation." The success criteria (1.3.1-1.3.6) define what must be true 
in order to ensure that information and structure can be separated from 
presentation." 

We also define presentation in terms of structure. So if we change the SC 
to be Information and Structure conveyed through presentation we might 
also need to change the definition of presentation so that it doesn't use 
structure. Although does the use of "structure" in presentation also cause 
a circular reference in the guideline text? 




[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2006JanMar/0472.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/mar9teamb/
[3] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1863
[4] http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/2006-03-09misc/
[5] http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/20060316teama/results

Becky Gibson
Web Accessibility Architect
                                                       
IBM Emerging Internet Technologies
5 Technology Park Drive
Westford, MA 01886
Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101
Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com

Received on Wednesday, 17 May 2006 12:17:47 UTC