RE: User Interface Context

Hi Andi

One minor point in response to this message. A lot of thought was given to the use of the word "product". Product is, quite simply, something that has been produced. As such, it is a very wide term that does not presuppose any way in which the product may be realised e.g. stand-alone, as part of a "package", etc.

I understand that you are concerned that what is written is not restricted to something that is produced by one entity and sold to another. But that, strictly, is a "commercial product". I know that "product" may be all too frequently be thought of as synonymous with "commercial product" - but they are not the same. It is perfectly legitimate to think of an open-source product.

I would rather live with a term which is perfectly suited to what we want to say. If we really felt it was necessary, a note could be added to explicitly state that we don't just mean commercial product - but really this should not be needed.

Best regards

Mike

From: Andi Snow-Weaver [mailto:andisnow@us.ibm.com]
Sent: 12 July 2012 14:01
To: Gregg Vanderheiden
Cc: public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: User Interface Context


To Bruce's point, I would remove "set of" from the beginning of the definition.
user interface elements and the presented information within a product that are available to a user at any point in time, where the set is limited to only those that can be reached using navigation commands within the product, and without using any activation commands.
What does "and the presented information" mean? Is the case of an authoring tool, I assume it is the "thing" being edited. I don't see a problem there as long as the "thing" doesn't have any interactivity of its own while it is being edited.

But in the case of a user agent, I assume the presented information is the "thing" being rendered (web page, web application, Flash application, PDF document) which might very well have it's own interactivity. In this case, it feels like scoping in "the presented information" is going too far. When I'm tabbing and arrowing around in a web application rendered in the browser, am I in the browser UI context or the web application UI context? It's very hard to draw the line there - the tabbing might be part of of the browser UI context while the arrowing might be part of the web application UI context.

I would like to avoid the use of "product" as it implies something commercial. But I can't think of another term to suggest at the moment. "Application" is also limiting as it leaves out the platform UI.

I think we will have to define "navigation command" and "activation command", find different terms, or explain them better in the notes. Most developers, absent further explanation, would consider selecting a menu item to be a navigation command. You are navigating to a different part of the UI. Activation, in the software context, generally means taking some action that changes something - saves a document, saves changes to settings, submits a transaction, etc. Using this definition, selecting a menu item might be navigation (opens another menu or non-modal dialog box) or it might be activation (opens a modal dialog box).

Andi