RE: ATAG2: Term "equivalent alternative"

Hi All-

This may be splitting hairs, but if we don't use "equivalent" in our term-I am a little concerned that our meaning may be lost. I think that our definition already addresses the meaning as " fulfills essentially the same 
function or purpose as the original content." 

I don't have a strong feeling either way about this-but I do think it is more meaningful that the other term.

-Dana 

Dana Louise Simberkoff
(o) +1-603-578-1870 x11
(c) +1-603-496-0359

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-au-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-au-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Jan Richards
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 3:29 PM
To: WAI-AUWG List
Subject: ATAG2: Term "equivalent alternative"

Hi all,

Last week we approved the following term and definition:

equivalent alternative
Content that is used in place of other content that a person may not be 
able to access. An equivalent alternative fulfills essentially the same 
function or purpose as the original content. Examples include text 
alternatives for non-text content, captions for audio, audio 
descriptions for video, sign language for audio, media alternatives for 
time-based media. See WCAG for more information


I then took the def'n to UAWG in an attempt to synchronize our terms...

UAWG liked the definition approach (e.g., letting WCAG set the 
specifics), but they decided to use the term "alternative content" 
instead since there was a feeling that nothing is truly equivalent.

That actually agrees well with WCAG 2.0 (which has terms like: 
"alternative for time-based media", "conforming alternate version", 
"media alternative for text", and "text alternative").

So what do people think of doing the same in ATAG 2.0?

(Jeanne can you please put this on the survey?)

Cheers,
Jan




-- 
Jan Richards, M.Sc.
User Interface Design Lead
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC)
Faculty of Information (i-school)
University of Toronto

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

Received on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 15:05:54 UTC