Re: For review: WAI HOME PAGE REDRAFT

At 10:04 AM 8/24/00 -0700, William Loughborough wrote:
>JB:: "Any more thoughts on how to improve the organization of info?"
>
>WL: The "organization of info" effectiveness seems too
>personal-preference oriented to discuss meaningfully. Whatever you use
>(well, almost whatever!) will work better for some people than others.
>Both the appearance and the organization *look* just fine. My problems
>with the original page didn't ever have to do with those factors but
>entirely with the content choices. Once I knew what "policy" meant
>(something very different than my usual use of that word) it was OK. I'm
>not that hip to the differences among "strategic/tactical" or
>"process/whatever" so I can only give a really superficial evaluation of
>the organization because to me "news" is a "resource" and stuff like
>that. I just don't think it's either particularly meaningful or at all
>objectively decidable so far as organization goes. So I'm not much help.

JB: I think content choice is worth focusing on in some of our discussion
tomorrow.

>I don't even see the need for internal page jumps on a page this short.

JB: You're browsing visually. On a link-heavy page, someone tabbing through
links via a screen reader may want a way to skip through links to H2's, to
avoid hearing a barrage of many links all the way down the page.

>When it gets longer then you'll have the same problems you had with the
>original and I think you're always going to have a vertical scroll
>requirement - once this page fills up. You're not going to want it to be
>*all* links.

JB: I'm hoping that this is a page format that _won't_ "fill up," but that
instead is a stable outline, pointing to sub-pages that can do the filling
up. What do you think?

>I think there may be some problem with your linking, perhaps you've
>stylized <A HREF>? On more careful examination not only Amaya 3.2 but
>Opera 4.01 fail to make the jumps within/from the site. IE 5 and NS 4.61
>work. 

JB: I don't get it. I'm making my links the way I always do. Anyone have
any insight here?

>The "quick tips, easy intros, how to's, frequent questions" and
>"guidelines, checklists, techniques" lines go to the slightly different
>parts of the same (external) document. I don't know if this is confusing
>or what, but it makes the point about collecting multiple links on a
>line worthy of a lot more thought.
>
>At this time (and I have a geezer's prerogative to change my mind) I
>favor every link having not only its own line but a parenthetical
>elucidation of what I'm to expect if I select it. That "evaluation and
>repair tools, logos, alternative browsers" are all in one heading on
>another page might excuse their taking only one line in this document
>but boggles the mind as to why they are particularly related where
>they're stored! Logos and alternative browsers are strange bedmates to
>me.
>
>"Events", "Upcoming Events", "more resources" strike me strange. The
>latter seems like "etc." without there being any "so" to be "forthed".

JB: The back of my mind is cranking away on yet another design, for the
resource section. But it would involve tables, with an unwrapping feature.
Will see if I can try it before tomorrow's meeting.

>I guess I'd choose to jump to the ToC of the "WAI Resource Library"
>rather than including jumps to within that page here. 

JB: That adds yet one more indirection before one arrives at the intended
document; I already have some reservations about the indirection of sending
people to the WAI Resource Library instead of directly to documents as on
the current WAI Interest Group page. However, sending them through the
Resource Library at least gives some possibility that someone will get a
little context about the document before landing there (many people end up
at WCAG 1.0, for instance, without realizing that we produce anything
else), and that they'll notice that a lot of other resources are also
available. But _two_ levels of indirection -- ouch. I think we'd lose people.

>I think the Working Groups (and Interest Group) under "Participation"
>deserve individual lines and parenthetical clues as to what they do.

JB: Takes up a bunch of space. What about pulling the groups off entirely,
onto an "About WAI" sub-page?

>Same goes for "About WAI" but since I would almost never look into
>that...
>
>This will go on for a while and I hope the above helps.

It does. Thanks.

- Judy

>--
>Love.
>ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
>
-- 
Judy Brewer    jbrewer@w3.org    +1.617.258.9741    http://www.w3.org/WAI
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) International Program Office
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
MIT/LCS Room NE43-355, 545 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA,  02139,  USA

Received on Thursday, 24 August 2000 13:26:31 UTC