Re: Accessibility default settings ...

I agree with how William stated it, that it is compliant.

> The configurability * INCLUDING THE DEFAULT SETTINGS OF
>THE VARIOUS ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES * does not affect the conformance
>level of the tool. That is my understanding.

But, when Heather said:
>if the majority of the Authoring Tools working group feels
>that the answer to the above question is "yes", then I will agree that
>authoring tools came comply with guideline 3.1 as currently defined, but
>will submit a request to include this example within the techniques
>document.

Why do you want to document a technique that says it is O.K. to have the
default setting off?  I would support putting the "discussion" in a
"compliance" section in the document to reach consensus, but I would not
want to encourage tool developers to set accessibility prompting default to
off.  I believe that the guidelines do a good job of pointing the
developers to "Support the creation of", "Provide ways of", "Integrate into
the overall "look and feel", and "Promote in help and documentation". So I
am back to the definition of prompt.

Prompt: requests a response from the user.

Prompting is required by the fact that there is a guideline and
checkpoints, but the guideline and checkpoints wording do NOT require that
a prompt must always appear regardless of the path the author takes when
using the tool. I believe it is worse to explicitly define the term to
require prompts in each or any path and document the option to configure it
off by default than to allow the so called "loop-hole".  Again, W3C
recommendations, as with most standards, are to leave room for
implementation differences upon which tool manufactures may compete.

So I don't have a problem with the current definition of PROMPT [ref 1] in
the Guidelines, nor with any of the text in guideline 3 [ref 2], and I've
realized that I forgot why we want to change either ... I do NOT.

Regards,
Phill Jenkins, IBM

[ref 1 http//www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10/atag10.html#def-prompt ] A "prompt" is a
request for author input, either information or a decision. A prompt
requires author response. For example, a text equivalent entry field
prominently displayed in an image insertion dialog would constitute a
prompt. Prompts can be used to encourage authors to provide information
needed to make content accessible (such as alternative text equivalents).

[ref 2 http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG10-TECHS/#gl-prewritten-descs]

Received on Tuesday, 16 May 2000 19:44:07 UTC