RE: User Interface Context

GV:   let me know if the last email helps with your head wrapping.

AH:  There must be a great response to this but phrasing is eluding me at present.  Your last post did definitely help me a lot.




From: Gregg Vanderheiden [mailto:gv@trace.wisc.edu]
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 9:14 AM
To: Hoffman, Allen
Cc: Bailey, Bruce; public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: User Interface Context

GV: comments below for both Allen and Bruce

On Jul 12, 2012, at 2:15 PM, Hoffman, Allen wrote:


I agree with you Bruce, but UI context is a great more widely scoped term in my view.  We just need to get that definition correct.  I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around the proposed definition.  As someone who will have to teach it it has to be teachable.

GV: I agree with you.   The general terms are way to broad (cover things outside the authors control)  and do not have any bright lines  (different people will define them differently)

GV:   let me know if the last email helps with your head wrapping.






From: Bailey, Bruce [mailto:Bailey@Access-Board.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2012 8:53 PM
To: public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org<mailto:public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org>
Subject: RE: User Interface Context

I am still in favor of trying to use a somewhat longer phrase (where the individual words have their common meaning) rather define a new term.  Something like "within the context of the user interface" instead of "on a web page".

GV:  you then have to define user interface.   THis would generally include the characteristics of the mouse and keyboard etc.   Which is more than we want.




I would also point that the proposed new definition starts off with "set of..." and it is being proposed that "user interface contexts" can be straight substitute for "web pages".  But we have a few criteria that refer to "within a set of Web pages" that expands to a set of a set!  While that may be mathematically okay, I think it is a mess semantically.


GV: not sure I follow.  Oh you mean because you end up with a Set of  Sets

Web page   =  User interface Context  = set of .....
Web pages =  User interface Contexts  =  sets of .....

Web page within a set of web pages  =   User interface Context  within a  Set of User interface contexts  =

Right.  That is why we suggested using  "product" for the "set of user interface contexts"  because that is what the set is.

What is nice is that even if you decide to plug the definition in for the term in its nested form it STILL works and is correct.  It just takes a second to parse it .

But as I mentioned in my previous email -- I think that some of the SC can be handled with the much simpler language that we proposed.     This definition works for all of them  - which it should  - but we don't have to use something more complicated for those SC than is necessary.





As an example, here is 3.2.3 using the proposed new term:
Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on multiple User Interface Contexts within a set of User Interface Contexts occur in the same relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.
Follows 3.2.3 using the same words but avoiding the new term per se:
Navigational mechanisms that are repeated in the user interface within the context of a set of user interfaces occur in the same relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.
GV: hmm but this doesn't work because this would require an author to be responsible for everything on the page and the hardware as well because they are all part of the user interface.  So this breaks down as being too all inclusive.



Follows is success criterion 3.2.3 with the proposed definition for "User Interface Contexts" substituted for "Web pages":

Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on multiple sets of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that are available to a user at any point in time, where the sets are limited to only those that can be reached using navigation commands within the product, and without using any activation commands within a set of sets of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that are available to a user at any point in time, where the sets are limited to only those that can be reached using navigation commands within the product, and without using any activation commands occur in the same relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.

GV: Yes -- ISO says that the definition should be able to be plugged in for the word - and the sentence should still be correct.  Which this is.   But ISO does not require (and no definition does ) that the sentence not be verbose at that point.   That is why there is a term and a definition.   If I plug the definition for each word in this sentence in in place of the word - the sentence will be incomprehensibly long.   Try it.

GV: That said,  based on Allen's request there is now a simpler one.  That would make the sentence much shorter and look like this:


set of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that can be accessed using only navigation commands.

Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on multiple sets of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that can be accessed using only navigation commands within a set of sets of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that can be accessed using only navigation commands occur in the same relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.

GV:   This is actually quite short for a sentence with the definitions plugged in for the word.

GV: And remember - we are suggesting that "product" be used for the set of sets so this would then be

Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on multiple sets of user interface elements and the presented information within a product that can be accessed using only navigation commands within a product occur in the same relative order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the user.


In short, unless we look at the results of the SC with the definition substituted in, I think we are likely to overlook problems with inventing a new term.

GV:  Agree.  but I don't see a problem yet except that plugging definitions in for words makes sentences very long and hard to parse.


GV:   I am all for not creating a new term - and we tried that.  But without creating an new bounded term, the responsibilities of the author/company are way too broad.

GV:  I / we are open to other ideas but so far this one is the only one that works and so far it seems to hold up.   But don't know till we bang it around a bit more.

thanks for helping to bang it.

let me/us know if you see anything that doesn't check out above.