Re: Comments and Recommendations

Hi:

Thanks for including me in your response.

My concern is for the authoring tools professional who is not an access
specialist, and who is not conversant with all the other sources of
information regarding how to make help accessible--which, to my mind,
includes keyboard commands. If this person doesn't see the requirment on
the requirments list, it is dificult to blame them for not supporting a
requirment that was never specified.

Let me turn the question around. What is so problematic about specifying
this requirment? Is it less elegant? Is it ... well, let me not speculate,
but simply ask. What's wrong with putting this in the reqs? And, if it
doesn't go there, where does the industry get its check list of "required
things" to fix?
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Information Systems Research & Development
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

janina@afb.net


On Tue, 5 Oct 1999 pjenkins@us.ibm.com wrote:

> 
> 
> regarding "accessible help"
> 
> Janina wrote:
> >1.)  "Help" must be accessible help if it is to assist the
> >authoring user who relies on assistive technology. This is a
> >critical point which should not be absent from the enumerated
> >requirements as it now is. It should be classified priority one,
> >because it is that important to successful use of an application...
> 
> 7.1 is a priority 1.  7.1 does include "accessible help" because
> at least 2 of the "software checklists", Microsoft's [1] and IBM's [2]
> include on-line help and documentation as explicit checklist items.
> 
> Why don't we also include KEYBOARD ACCESS, which in my opinion is even
> more important that accessible help?  If you don't have keyboard access
> you may not even be able to use the product.
> 
> I feel we do not need to include any of the items from the
> applicable standards and conventions to make 7.1 better understood.
> As a parallel example, I feel we do not need to include any of
> the Web Content Accessibility checkpoints items either.  We *DO* need to
> point to the applicable standards and conventions which affect authoring
> - which is currently being done.  Summary: do not add more checkpoints for
> "accessible help", or "keyboard access", etc.
> 
> [1] Microsoft software checklist
> http://www.microsoft.com/enable/dev/guidelines/software.htm#Documentation
> [2] IBM Software checklist
> http://www.austin.ibm.com/sns/accesssoftware.html#checklist
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Phill Jenkins
> 
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 5 October 1999 17:30:37 UTC