Re: usability/accessibility. Yes; examples.

By George, he's Got It!

At 08:42 AM 2000-07-03 -0700, William Loughborough wrote:

>What I gather from this is that we must attend more to the
>"accessibility of the accessibility recommendations" rather than staying
>focused almost entirely on the recommendations themselves.
>
[...]

And just in case I haven't said it 40 times yet, that means examples,
examples, examples.

The legal connotations of the term 'certification' are an obstacle, for
sure.  Let the W3C avoid certification, indeed.  But just as we adopted
'recommendation' as a euphemism for under-the-radar effective standards,
why doesn't the WAI recognize it _is_ entirely appropriate for the W3C to
get involved in the 'authentication' of examples.  Designers won't know
what to do without examples.  

Recognition (who said endorsement -- It's not an endorsement!) from the W3C
is something that those who invest in compliance early will value.  And it
has a ripple effect.  It is good for our purposes of rapid adoption if we
can do anything good for those who listen well and early.

It is appropriate, and highly beneficial for training results, for the W3C
to make assertions of the form "[This resource] is an example which
satisfies WCAG 1.0, checkpoint n.m."  The manual checks that Bobby leaves
the person to do are not 100% reliable yet on a self-administered basis.
Identifying real examples where WAI insiders have confirmed the assertion
of compliance _adds significantly to the clarity with which the rules are
understood, and the speed with which they will be adopted_.

Cross-tabulate the feature utilization at the EASI winner sites with
checkpoints that bear on these feature-use examples.  Double-check if the
use is a good example.  Publish this database.  Add SNOW to cover some
features or techniques not well illustrated in the EASI batch.  SNOW is
rich with very consciouly applied techniques done up to life size.  

This will complete an initial critical mass of technique examples.  This
will draw people saying "Yes, but I have another technique that works
well."  From there it takes off.

Al

Received on Monday, 3 July 2000 14:56:13 UTC