Re: "to urge, suggest or dictate"

My response to some of Fred's comments:

> - 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.
>

FJB:  That depends on when the "problem is detected." Every time an image
is
inserted into an MS Word document, no.

PJ: except if the tool already "pops up" a dialog when an image is
inserted, such as prompting for file name,  or size or something, then the
alt text should be part of the dialog to be compliant.

FJB:  When that document is saved as HTML,
yes. Note that I'm reading this part to mean a dialog box will pop up each
time
an image is inserted. Something like the blue squiggly line wouldn't be any
problem, but it would depend on the author to check why it's there. So I
don't
think that fits what you wrote.

PJ: I think a warning message in a save dialog and / or a blue squiggle
meet the definition of the of the tool initiating the request to the
author.  The guideline doesn't dictate how the author must respond.


> - whether the prompt must occur within the same authoring session

FJB:  Again, that depends on what you're writing. I would lean towards no.

PJ: I agree.


> - whether the prompting must be on by default

FJB:  I do believe accessibility features should be on be default. Lots of
people
start using a program with out even reading the manual or help file first,
an
so might not even know they're there. Also, I feel on by default helps to
show
how important accessibility is.

PJ: I agree.  Again, add it to the techniques.


Phill Jenkins
http :www ibm.com/able

Received on Thursday, 25 May 2000 15:45:11 UTC