Re: Please Vote: Process for new guidelines and rules [was Re: Guidelines Implementation

>Actually, I am going to vote "nay."  I think it is important that tools not
>limit their ambition to mere guideline conformance.
>

I went back to the group charter to clarify this particular issue. In both
ER groups (ig & wg), it states... "We will use the author guidelines as a
basis for discussion." [see pasted excerpts below] ...which seems to support
Bruce's statement (assuming that there has not been some later modification
to this statement that I am not aware of). As there is a nay vote, I also
believe a discussion is in order...

>I don't see a problem with breaking down a checkpoint (1.1 in particular)
>into several sub-categories that can each be better analyzed.

I believe that this ended up the consensus at the face to face meeting in
T.O. At that same meeting, I understood that this would in fact be done to
Daniel's document "evalauto" which would serve as the basis of this and
other discussions (Daniel?).

Regarding the use of alt=" "... (I'm assuming this use where the author is
using a transparent gif for spacing):

Going back to the guideline 1 as a basis for this particular discussion:

Guideline 1. Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.

The relevant word here to me is "content". It seems to me that if I wish to
separate content from presentation, and I am using a transparent gif for
presentation (which has already broken this concept I know, but assuming it
is already being used & our tool is trying to repair it), then there would
be no need to provide alternative representation for it (eg. spacer). If
anything, it seems that it would interrupt the flow of content read out in a
screen reader.

I realize that written in the checkpoint (1.1) it says: "Provide a text
equivalent for every non-text element... This includes...images used as...
spacers". This suggests that using alt=" " would be "illegal".

Given the amount written on this particular issue this seems, as noted in a
previous note, to be a 'hot' topic. As we are focussed on writing tools, I
would suggest that we abstract and modularize this component and provide a
(tool) user configurable setting. In other words, let the person who will be
using the tool have the choice as to how they wish to eval/repair this
particular instance (etc. if alt="" or alt=" ", then pass/fail).

Of course then there is the issue about what would be the "default" which
appears to bring the issue back into our faces. The benefit, though, is that
it 'lightens' the issue and allows us to carry on with tool development. In
fact, perhaps an additional column could be added to "evalauto" where we
could place multiple choices for the user to decide?

Bill

=====================
E-Ramp: www.eramp.com

Access Empowers People
Barriers Disable Them

====================

http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/charter-er-wg#mission

2 Scope
...
The definition of accessibility rating scale is in the scope of the ER IG
group, but the ER WG will provide input on feasibility.


6.1 Groups whose work will be used
WAI Evaluation and Repair Interest Group (WAI-ER-IG): we will look to this
group for input in the area of tools coordination, evaluation criteria, and
overall production of empirical data.
WAI Page Author Guidelines Working Group (WAI-GL). We will use the author
guidelines as a basis for discussion.
WAI User Agent Guidelines and Authoring Tool Working Group (WAI-UA and AU)
to understand how the integration of tools with User Agents and Authoring
environment is best achieved.


http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/charter-er-ig

6 Dependencies of this group on other groups
6.1 Groups whose work will be used
WAI Page Author Guidelines Working Group (WAI-GL). We will use the author
guidelines as a basis for discussion.

Received on Sunday, 23 May 1999 09:07:07 UTC