Bottom Line Rating

I'd like to propose a simple way to add a bottom line rating as follows.
Basically, it just asks the user to apply manual checks, and then applies
the A, AA, AAA definitions in the guidelines to the "web site".  I don't
think this is particularly new, it's just a codification of what most of us
have assumed anyway, with maybe a few extra details.  

It could be part of the ER Techniques document

http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/docs/Implementation.html

or a separate statement.  If we can quick consensus, I'd suggest putting in
the ER Techniques document.  If people want to thing about this a lot more,
we can issue it as a separate statement to avoid any delays in the ER
Techniques Doc.

Len

---------

The tool shall give the user the option to manually check off all items on
the "web site" that require manual checking.  Irrelevant items shall be
omitted (e.g. if there is not audio or video, manual checking of the
textual equivalents is irrelevant.  This will require an affirmative action
by the user, such as use of checkboxes.

The tool shall use this information together with the automatic checkings
to give the page an A, AA, or AAA rating, per the guideline definitions
(viz. does the "web site" satisfied all priority 1, 1+2, 1+2+3 checkpoints
respectively).

"Web Site", by default, shall mean a user-defined "home page", and all
pages that can be reached by any series of browser actions that keep the
user in the home page directory, subdirectory, sub-sub directory, etc.

The user shall be able to add or remove pages from that "web site" definition.

-------------

If the user does not use the manual checkoff procedure at all, the tool
shall make a statement equivalent to one of the following:

a. "This site is not accessible."

b. "This site might be accessible.  Manual checks are needed to properly
gauge accessibility."

The word "might" should be <strong>.

If the user chooses to do just priority 1 or 1+2 checkpoints one of the
following statements or equivalent shall be issued:

c. "This site has at least an A accessibilty rating. Manual checks are
needed to see if it passes the higher AA or AAA standards"

d. "This site has at least an AA accessibilty rating. Manual checks are
needed to see if it passes the higher AAA standard"

Both c and d assume of course that the appropriate manual and automatic
checks are passed.
-------
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Universal Design Engineer, Institute on Disabilities/UAP, and
Adjunct Professor, Electrical Engineering
Temple University

Ritter Hall Annex, Room 423, Philadelphia, PA 19122
kasday@acm.org        
(215) 204-2247 (voice)
(800) 750-7428 (TTY)

Received on Tuesday, 10 August 1999 12:25:27 UTC