New wording in GL 4 leading in to "look-and-feel" techniques.

Hi,

This is the proposal I have put together for the intro text to Guideline 4:

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This guideline requires that authoring tools must promote accessible 
authoring practices within the tool as well as smoothly integrate any 
functions added to meet the other requirements in this document. The 
checkpoint requirements for this section include ensuring that 
accessibility practices and features are given authoring interface 
priority (Checkpoint 4.1), clear availability (Checkpoint 4.2), 
@@waiting for 4.3 resolution@@ (Checkpoint 4.3), and sufficient 
configurability (Checkpoint 4.4).

@@JR Proposal@@ Note: In addition to the normative requirements of this 
guideline, implementors should consider one other issue: the integration 
of accessibility features, such as *prompting*, *checking* and *repair* 
with the "look-and-feel" of other features of the authoring tool. This 
type of integration has the potential to produce a seamless product will 
leverage their existing knowledge and skills of *authors* to increase 
their receptivity to new authoring requirements and reduce the 
likelihood of confusion. However, whenever new features are introduced 
into an authoring tool, striking the right design balance between 
similarity with existing features and providing new functionality is 
often more of an art than a science. Moreover, the effectiveness of the 
solutions are perhaps better judged by the markeplace than by a set of 
stringent requirements. To this end, the Working Group has compiled a 
number of *"look-and-feel"-related techniques* for this issue, without 
normative success criteria.

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*abc* means a link.

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I have also updated my draft with the different options for 3.1 and 4.3:
http://jan.rcat.utoronto.ca/public/auwg/guidelines.html

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Cheers,
Jan

-- 
Jan Richards, M.Sc.
User Interface Design Specialist
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC), University of Toronto

   Email: jan.richards@utoronto.ca
   Web:   http://jan.atrc.utoronto.ca
   Phone: 416-946-7060
   Fax:   416-971-2896

Received on Tuesday, 2 November 2004 22:01:22 UTC