Comments on July 26 Business Case Benefits draft

Comments on the July 26 Business Benefits of Accessible Web Design
[http://members.optushome.com.au/amja/wai/ap-auxben6.html]
Some of these are for general discussion, and some are intended as 
editorial comments for Andrew.

Cultural differences:

Andrew, just a quick warning: Judy may ask that we replace our 
proper-English spelling of "colour" with the US "color", and  "utilising" 
with "utilizing", and so on.  The working group has had this discussion 
before, but the official line is, I believe, that US English is expected in 
all W3C documents.  Annoying to us empire-loyalists, but true 
<grin>.  Others I found include: favour, recognisable, organisations.

General stylistic comment:

There are a variety of tones expressed in the document (probably my fault, 
since I didn't proof-read the expanded document I supplied back in 
May.)  Some paragraphs are written impersonally, e.g. "Making content as 
clear and understandable as possible immediately increases the size and 
breadth of the audience that can benefit from it. " while some are more 
personal, e.g. "Since the message you hope to convey with complex graphics 
such as photographs, graphs and charts may not be immediately obvious to 
(or even viewable by) some visitors a clear text description of what the 
image means or conveys can be a great boon to your audience." Is it worth 
trying to make the document consistent with either style?

Specific comments:

Section 1

[In respect to W3C/WAI guidelines, shouldn't "compliance" be 
"conformance"?  I have a vague memory of hearing someone say that, but I am 
not sure if it was said during the conference call or in some other context.]

Section 2: Improve usability for non-disabled visitors

"Since one of the underlying tenets of the WCAG is to increase the 
usability of Web sites, the following guidelines will help your achieve this."

[I would reword this slightly:]

"Since one of the underlying tenets of the WCAG is to increase the 
usability of Web sites, following the guidelines will help you achieve this."

Section 2: Increase support for Internationalization

·	Redundancy of another modality to assist understanding/comprehension"

[I need, and have always needed, another modality to understand sentences 
that use the word "modality".  I dislike it in WCAG and I dislike it here: 
has anyone come up with a simpler way of saying this?]

Section 3: Reduce site maintenance

"With site development and maintenance costs is an ongoing concern for 
businesses, applying design techniques that can reduce these costs is a 
strategic move."

[Suggested change:]

"With site development and maintenance costs an ongoing concern for 
businesses, applying design techniques that can reduce these costs is a 
strategic move."
or
"Site development and maintenance costs are an ongoing concern for 
businesses; applying design techniques that can reduce these costs is a 
strategic benefit."

Section 3: XML and other evolving W3C technologies

"In addition to the WAI, other methods that incorporate these principles 
exist and provide the benefits described in this Appendix. Papers about the 
accessibility features of XHTML, XML, SVG and SMIL make their benefits clear."

[This bullet is very confusing to me. Do we mean:]

"The benefits described in this document will be realized if the concepts 
expressed in the WCAG are applied to any Web application development: not 
just to designs using HTML. The WAI has published papers about the 
accessibility features of XHTML, XML, SVG and SMIL that make their benefits 
clear."

Section 3: Site Search Engine Improvements

[Under this heading the entry, as written, does not really reflect a 
benefit for " operational processes and technical procedures" (3. Increase 
Efficiency).  Maybe what we want to add is that:

"If customer's on-line searches are more successful, they will be less 
likely to resort to using your more resource-consuming technical or 
business support services (like customer hot-lines)."

Section 3: Repurposing Content

[Suggested reworking:]

"The adoption of device independence practices will enhance your ability to 
repurpose your content for use on the evolving range of web enabled device 
from WAP phone to PDAs to in-car navigation devices. Techniques include the 
separation of structure from presentation and ensuring that content 
relevance and importance is not solely portrayed through the use of colour."

[By the way, do we really have to use the word "repurposing"?  Does it 
appear in any English dictionary (one published before the year 2001, that 
is)?]

Regards,
Chuck Letourneau

Received on Monday, 30 July 2001 14:11:49 UTC