RE: New Working Draft

     First, let me introduce myself.  I'm Bruce Roberts, a software Architect at
Lotus.  I'm new to the group so I apologize in advance for any improprieties I
may engage in, all guidance to help me toward correct usage of this mailing list
is encouraged.


I have a couple of statements to make about guideline #3 of the Authoring Tool
Accessibility Guidelines:

1)  I believe these guidelines are simply restatements of the WAI User Agent
Guidelines as applied to an Authoring tool.  Each Authoring tool guideline has a
parallel in the User Agent document:  Authoring Tool 3.1 <-> User Agent 4.1,
Authoring Tool 3.2 <-> User Agent 5, Authoring Tool 3.3 <->User Agent 4.2.  In
fact, these guidelines could be applied to Word Processing, spreadsheets, etc.
For example:  Navigation in a word processor could correspond to an outline
view, in a spreadsheet to a list of sheets or named ranges, etc.

2)  I believe development cost is important to consider.  Development cost can
be a significant barrier to implementation and thus to the spread of usable
software.  To take a (admittedly outlandish) case:  we could require all
authoring tools to work via telephone but we don't.  The point is that the line
has to be drawn somewhere and we should keep that in mind when agreeing on
requirements.  It's my belief that guideline #3 will be expensive to implement
for many, if not most, authoring tools.

     For these reasons I would like to see guideline #3 eliminated or moved to a
more appropriate spot.  For example, it could be morphed to a list of techniques
for authoring tools to follow the User Agent Guidelines.

-- Bruce








Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org> on 03/08/99 12:16:31 PM

To:   Charles Oppermann <chuckop@microsoft.com>
cc:   w3c-wai-au@w3.org (bcc: Bruce Roberts/CAM/Lotus)
Subject:  RE: New Working Draft




As I understand it, based in part on the brief discussion at the face to
face meeting, there are two possibilities for a structure view which is
designed to increase the accessibility of an authoring tool (as opposed to
the final document, which is why the proposed checkpoint is in the new
section 3)
1. An outline view, similar to that available in MSWord, or Amaya's "table
of Contents" view
2. A formal structure view exposing the DOM tree, similar to that
available in Amaya.

Being able to navigate either or both of these trees makes it much easier
to deal with the document in an environment where scrolling through the
document is an expensive process - eg braille display, small screen, etc.

The development cost is outside the scope of this group.

Charles McCathieNevile

On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Charles Oppermann wrote:

  How will presenting a document in a structured view improve it's
  accessibility?  Have you considered the potential development cost in
  creating this feature?

  How will knowing that a <P> tag is part of a <H1> help the accessibility of
  the document?  Can you explain the rationale and the reason.

  What authoring tools provide this feature?  I know that Word has an outline
  view - is that what you are referring to?  How would Excel produce this
  feature?

  Thanks,
  Charles Oppermann
  Program Manager, Microsoft Accessibility and Disabilities Group
  http://www.microsoft.com/enable/

  -----Original Message-----
  From: Jutta Treviranus [mailto:jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca]
  Sent: Friday, March 05, 1999 2:11 PM
  To: love26@gorge.net; w3c-wai-au@w3.org
  Subject: Re: New Working Draft


  At 2:31 PM -0500 3/5/99, William Loughborough wrote:

  >I still propose 3.1.3 to emphasize that just a text view is not enough
  >and that the "structure tree" is important to authoring and not just to
  >navigating.  In Amaya, if I'm not mistaken it is possible to do certain
  >editing functions directly from the structure view?

  I agree that we need to mention a structure view. I think it can fit into
  the navigation guideline because this would refer to navigation for editing
  not browsing and it would include controls to move around, edit and switch
  between views.

  Jutta


--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Monday, 8 March 1999 15:11:52 UTC