Re: WAI 4/25/00 authoring tools group conference call meeting notes

Following up on Heather's notes, a minor correction. I did not argue
that there had to be something which provided a mechanism for the user
to input information, just that there had to be, somewhere in the
process of authoring, something that appeared and had to be
deliberately dismissed by the author in some way. It does not have to
be more than a reminder to input alternative text, with an OK button
(although in many cases that is not the best design).

I do not have a problem with the idea that a tool could simply allow
all accessibility warnings to be turned off, nor with one that could
disable this particular feature (which is really like a special case of
a validator in a validating tool - see asWedit for an example). Again,
that is hardly an ideal desgin, and I expect better from most
developers. However it is important to define not only what is the best
possible way to implement all of this, for those who are trying to
create a great tool, but also what is the minimum requirement for those
who are seeking a tool that 'just passes'.

It does not seem to fit within the checkpoint that there is a way to
bypass this (for example by using drag and drop, or directly adding
markup) and still conform, except by deliberately turning the feature
off.

In the discussion about whether or not a tool conforms out of the box,
I would follow the precedent set by Wendy Chisholm's evaluation of
HotMetal, in which she said that in accessibility mode the tool
conforms, and I would regard that as a conforming tool (subject to the
provisions of guideline 5).

During the Process:
In general, this does have to mean before saving or closing. Unless a
tool knows the difference between saving an intermediate version, and
publishing (some tools do, but most don't) then it has to assume that a
document saved is a document published. There ought to be a wide range
of configuration options for how such a feature appeared - tell me
every time I insert an image, tell me before I am going to
publish/close/save if there is still something missing, turn the
feature off.

Cheers

Charles

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Received on Wednesday, 3 May 2000 10:32:46 UTC