RE: "to urge, suggest or dictate"

I agree, and applaud Jutta's for being able to summarize this discussion so
well.

Heather Swayne

-----Original Message-----
From: Jutta Treviranus [mailto:jutta.treviranus@utoronto.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2000 12:05 PM
To: w3c-wai-au@w3.org
Subject: "to urge, suggest or dictate"

Towards a better definition of "prompt" the following is my reading
of where the group is at with respect to the issues regarding
"prompt:"

We have general agreement that:
- the use of the word prompt in the guidelines does not refer to the
narrow definition of a "prompt" as defined in several software
guidelines, rather it is used as a verb with the Oxford dictionary
meaning of "To urge, suggest, or dictate (a thing); to inspire, give
rise to (thought, action)."
- the form and timing of the prompt can be user configurable
- equivalent text deserves special support within the authoring tool,
because it can involve the greatest amount of work for the author,
and because of it's importance within WCAG, therefore we want to do
more than what is encompassed within guidelines 4 and 5. We want to
do more than check, repair and provide help. We also don't want to
depend upon the author to seek out support. The additional support or
prompting should be initiated by the tool if a problem is detected,
not requested by the author.

Beyond the implementation details the sticking points we can't reach
agreement on are:
- whether the prompt requires author response or requests author response
- whether the prompt must occur within the same authoring session
- whether the prompting must be on by default

The general goal of the guideline is to:
- encourage, urge and support the author in creating meaningful
equivalent text without causing frustration that may cause the author
to turn off access options
- cause a positive disposition and awareness on the part of the
author toward accessible authoring practices.

Do people agree with this summary? I'm in the process of coming up
with a not too wordy definition based on these assumptions.

Jutta

Received on Thursday, 25 May 2000 12:33:29 UTC