Re[2]: "Check Your Page" tool

 
Karl,
Would you post your reply to the whole list?  I think it could get some more
interesting discussion going.  Thanks again for putting this together.

Len

____________________Forward Header_____________________
Subject:    Re[2]: "Check Your Page" tool
Author: Karl Hebenstreit
Date:       07/06/1999 11:24 AM

Len -
Thanks for your response..  From other feedback I've received, I'm going to
provide more online documentation (originally, I hoped to keep it to one page if
printed, but this is unrealistic considering the amount of information being
conveyed).  

The purpose for creating this tool has been to address a widespread concern
among federal IT professionals that the automated tools (particularly Bobby) do
not provide a definitive evaluation of accessibility (the new language of Bobby
3.1 versions has definitely addressed some of this concern).   What we'd like to
be able to do with tool is provide a single source HTML page that provides a
verification framework with direct links to the analyses of a given webpage and
online references for more information.

Explanation:
Currently, I have some explanation of the page provided when creating (editing)
the form, which is then suppressed when viewing the form.   For providing
explanation of the page's purpose, do you think a narrative paragraph would be
better, or should I keep the process outline style and provide a brief sentence
for each section (Analysis, Testing, ...)?

Who's linking to your site?
Does this need further explanation, other than the ALT text tag "Who's linking
via <search engine>" ?   Do the graphics display properly for you (I'm linking
to the search engine logos directly, rather than having copied them to my own
website)?

Saving the analysis?
Originally, I was deleting the pages (forms) every hour.  However, this meant
that forms existed for a time from a few seconds up to an hour, depending on
when they were submitted.  I changed this so that those forms with a value of
"No" are deleted.  The initial value of "Later" is switched to "No" after the
first hour's deletion so they should be deleted the following hour (giving forms
a duration of one to two hours).   

I created the "shorten URL" link that uses the "Page Title" field value -- this
value should also be the default name provided when saving the HTML page
locally.    While I agree with you that saving should not be necessary, I
believe this should be option for convenience sake if someone wants to refer
back to this page frequently over several weeks' time while re-designing their
page.  

I have the option of changing the field to "Yes" which will keep it listed in
the view permanently as a means of providing some example pages (I've got links
to some sites that are conforming to the HTML 4.0 Transitional and CSS
standards.  Ideally, the example sites I link to will be other government sites,
such as the Washington state site).
We could also use this for bringing attention to specific sites in a newsletter
to government webmasters, such as:

http://w3.gsa.gov/web/m/cita.nsf/CheckYourPage/WA+State

As more sites become WCAG-AA and WCAG-AAA compliant, these would be good
examples as well.  I'm using the same "Who's Linking..." techniques to provide
links to sites who are linking to the WCAG logo pages (the "Examples of
compliant sites", with the necessary caveat).  The direct links for these
queries are:

Level A sites:   http://w3.gsa.gov/web/m/cita.nsf/Links/WCAGLevelA
Level Double-A sites:  http://w3.gsa.gov/web/m/cita.nsf/Links/WCAGLevelAA
Level Triple-A sites:  http://w3.gsa.gov/web/m/cita.nsf/Links/WCAGLevelAAA









____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject:    Re: "Check Your Page" tool
Author: "leonard r. kasday" <kasday@acm.org>
Date:       07/02/1999 2:34 PM

Hi Karl,

This is certainly a useful tool. Thanks for the preview!

However, it took me a while to understand what it did.  I had expected that
after I clicked "submit" that I would see analysis results.  What it
actually does is to set up a page which allows me to submit the page to a
number of tools by simply clicking on links, thereby saving me the trouble
of going to each verifier and pasting the url into it's input form. It also
sets up the queries needed to check who is linking to my site as determined
by various search engines. Like I say, thats quite a handy thing to do.
But since it didn't do what I had expected I thought there was something
wrong or I wasn't using it correctly.  So I'd suggest explaining explicitly
what it does so people can appreciate it faster.

Also, why have it save the page at all?  A person can always generate it on
the fly or save it to their hard drive. Plus, I think it might be
intiminating to see their web page displayed on a public list for all to
see.  Especially when it's a page which they know hadn't been checked for
accessibility problems. Plus, if this tool is used a lot, the list gets to
be quite long. So I'd recommend to omit the saving and the list.

Another suggestion: when you save a page with the usual browser, like
netscape, it doesn't save images. Then when the person brings up the saved
page, s/he gets a "broken image" icon which looks unsettling.  So I'd
suggest omitting the image fix99.JPG.

Len


At 12:17 PM 6/30/99 -0400, karl.hebenstreit@gsa.gov wrote:
>
>
>I've developed a "Check Your Page" tool on my website, which is based on the
>City of Brea analysis that Kynn Bartlett did for the FedWeb '99 conference
back
>in April.
>
>My office, which provides governmentwide policy support, has received many
>requests for assistance from agency CIOs regarding the DOJ Section 508
>self-evaluations (the Rehab Act Amendments of 1998 required the Attorney
General
>to report on the state of acessibility of government IT by February 7, 2000).
>
>Following the "Check Your Page" link will provide a form for you to enter a
>short one or two word title for referencing your page, and the URL for your
>page.   Once you submit the form, you may need to hit the refresh/reload
button
>on your browser in order to have your page appear in the list.  There is an
>agent that runs every hour that will delete files that are between one and
two
>hours old, so that the database won't get too large.
>
>Please comment as soon as possible -- please do not distribute this too
widely
>while it's still in development.  I'd like to make a more formal
announcement by
>the end of next week (July 9).
>
>Thanks,
>Karl
>
>http://w3.gsa.gov/web/m/cita.nsf/CheckYourPage
>
>Karl Hebenstreit, Jr.
>US General Services Administration
>Center for Information Technology Accommodation (CITA)
>202-501-0004
>karl.hebenstreit@gsa.gov
>
>
-------
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)