RE: Requirements on repair

I have spoken with Bob Regan and we have agreed on the following: 

(1) The bundling clause does not force larger authoring tools to collaborate 
with or be dependent on smaller tools (such a plug-ins), a relationship that 
has the potential to delay the larger tool when the smaller makes design 
changes or suffers production delays. Instead the bundling clause is to be 
understood (and if necessary rewritten) to emphasize that the "bundle" is 
only a piece of information for purchasers, not a collaboration 
requirement. "Bundles" are also not necessarily exclusive. A tool without 
repair functionality could conform to ATAG bundled with any one of a number 
of third party evaluation and repair tools. 

(2) The minimal success criteria for checkpoints 3.2 and 3.3 (i.e. that an 
authoring tool or "bundle" [see (1)] provide a "manual" system for checking 
and repairing content for accessibility) are satisfactory. The wording 
should be clarified to emphasize that manual checking consists of basic 
instructions for the user on how to check for a problem themselves (e.g. look 
for IMG tags without "Alt" attributes...) and manual repairing consists of 
basic instructions for the user on how to repair problems themselves (e.g. add 
an "Alt" attribute with a value string that describes the image...). Of 
course, such rudimentary systems leave open a large potential market for 
automated evaluation and repair tools that could be filled by third party 
tools and/or large tools themselves. 

(3) The conformance scheme of ATAG 2.0 might benefit from a change in which 
priorities are set according to whether the requirement refers to each 
individual tool or to the enterprise-wide authoring system. 

(4) The representatives from developers of the largest tools (DW, GoLive, 
HomePage Builder, FrontPage(?)) should be asked for an interim report on how 
they believe their tools currently fare with regard to ATAG 2.0 as this is 
important information for the group. 



Cheers, 
Jan

Received on Friday, 4 March 2005 13:23:44 UTC