RE: "to urge, suggest or dictate"

This seems like a good summary of where we are at.

I would suggest that the question of whether prompting must occur in every
user session, whether it is on by default, and whether it is configurable as
to timing, are all part of a single question - can it be configurable?
Nothing in the current guidelines says it can't, and good marketing sense
says that in general it will be. However, prompting that only occurs
sometimes is likely to only conform sometimes, or under some set of
conditions. I would personally be happier about a tool that prompted with
accessibility options turned on than one which only prompted if the user
chose a particular interaction method, i.e. I would rather have prompting
that can be turned on and off for all methods of adding content than
prompting which only occurred for insertion by keyboard interaction and not
drag and drop - if some function is a natural part of the tool interface and
doesn't have an accessibility prompt available then I would suggest that
contravenes 5.1 and 5.2.

cheers

Charles McCN

On Thu, 25 May 2000, Heather Swayne wrote:

  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
  

--
Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053
Postal: GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne 3001,  Australia

Received on Friday, 26 May 2000 10:26:25 UTC