Re: Accessibility default settings ...

On stardate 16 May 2000, Heather Swayne sent a subspace communication stating:

> I request a poll or vote to see were the other members of the Authoring
> Tools Working Group stand on this issue:
> 
> Does an Authoring Tool comply with guideline 3.1 if the default setting of
> their accessibility option is set to "no-prompting"?
> Assuming:
> 1) Guideline 3.1 requires authoring tools to "prompt" (confront the user
> with a dialog that would allows them to enter alt+text) at some time between an
> image being inserted and the document being saved (saving does not guarantee
> that the author has finished the editing process but it is the first time that a
> user could potentially interact with the page and would therefore would need to
> be compliant with Web content guidelines). 2) An authoring tool implements a
> "configurable" solution (allows authors to choose/set the level of prompting
> ranging from no-prompting to force me to make corrections as soon as an
> accessibility related error is detected).
>
     If the default is set to "no prompting" then no, I don't think it meets 
the guidelines. I believe accessibility features should be "on" by default, and 
that the user should turn them off, or "down" as it were.  Regardless of what 
we decide "prompt" means later on, accessibility features should always be 
enabled by default if switchable.


Frederick J. Barnett                  http://www.eatel.net/~fred/
E-mail: fred@eatel.net
Member: HWG Governing Board & Assistant Secretary
http://www.hwg.org/

Received on Wednesday, 17 May 2000 14:44:42 UTC