Re: Prompts

On stardate 26 Apr 2000, Jutta Treviranus sent a subspace communication stating:

> 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."

     Agreed.

> - 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.

     Agreed.

> - 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.
>
     Agreed.
 
> 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 prefer the second definition, allowing the prompt to be ignored if 
someone is just laying out a rough outline, or in the case of a word processor, 
not even intending to publish on the web.

> 2. Should the author be able to turn off all prompts in a single step?
>
     Yes. I think one button or menu choice that says "Accessibility features 
on" or something like that is more likely to be used than something that 
requires checking several boxes to turn off, and on.
 
> We need to clearly distinguish what the additional requirements are 
> in 3.1 beyond the requirements in guidelines 4 and 5 relative to 
> equivalent alternative information.
> 
     I'll have to get back to you on that one.


Frederick J. Barnett                       http://www.eatel.net/~fred/
E-mail: fred@eatel.net
"Someone's got to take the responsibility if the job's going to get done!! Do you think that's easy?!?" Gregory Peck - The Guns
 Of Navarone.

Received on Wednesday, 26 April 2000 17:38:09 UTC