Re: Prompts

> Regarding yesterday's teleconference, can people confirm the following:
> 
> - we agree that we need to create an errata to change the definition
> of "prompt" in the "Glossary of Terms and Definitions" section of the
> Guidelines. There are inconsistencies in the definition itself. We
> have not decided what the change will be although Phil has proposed
> that we change the word "requires" to "requests" in the sentence "A
> prompt requires author response."
> - we agree that we need to make the meaning of the guideline clear
> and explicit in the techniques but we do not have a compelling reason
> to change the wording of the guideline itself.
> - we agree that prompts should be on an author configurable schedule,
> that they should be consistent with the look and feel of the
> application and that the author can actively choose to cancel the
> prompt.

I agree.

> The issues we need to address are:
> 1. - does "prompt the author" mean that the software initiates a
> request for information at some point in the authoring process that
> the author is compelled to respond to or cancel
> or
> does software comply with the guideline if the request is present and
> visible but need not be responded to and could be avoided when
> certain authoring strategies are used (Phil's loophole)?

I tend to agree with Phil, although I think the whole "pop-up in your
face" discussion may have been too black and white.  For instance, a
developer could get around the problem of explicit prompting by adding a
short alert (icon and explanatory text) to a pre-existing save or
publish dialog.  In this scenario, the author is already being
interrupted with a request for information ("enter file name", "confirm
write over", confirm publish to web", etc.) and an accessibility warning
could be added without necessitating extra mouse clicks. 

> 2. Should the author be able to turn off all prompts in a single step?

Not for a universal (all future pages) setting.

Cheers,
Jan

-- 
Jan Richards
jan.richards@utoronto.ca
Access Software Designer
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre
University of Toronto
(416) 946-7060

Received on Wednesday, 26 April 2000 17:17:58 UTC