Re: rating algorithm

I have a comment with the step two (2) of the algorithm [which also relates to
how BOBBY currently works]:

>I have a draft of the rating algorithm at
>http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/rating/
>Please take a look and tell me what you think.
>Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.

2. .."give the user the option to" seems to contradict "all manual check-off
[items] shall require an explicit".  The example is exactly the one I have a
comment about, namely checking if ALT="text" is suitable for all images or if
LONGDESC is needed.  I shouldn't be forced to look at each and every single IMG
tag to determine if LONGDESC is required.

At a recent Internet rally in Austin where professional web design teams created
web sites for community based non-profit organization [i.e. Goodwill] and were
judged on accessibility - complained about the verbosity of BOBBY, especially
the listing of ALL the IMG tags on every page to manually determine if the
LONGDESC and again if the D link was needed.  The report is overkill and turns
off the author to accessibility with too much information.  In my opinion it is
OK to ask one time the question - are any of images in need of a LONGDESC?  And
if the author asks for it, to get a list of IMGs to consider - but not require
the author to answer to each and every IMG used on the page.

Proposed rewording for no. 2:

2. The tool shall give the user the option to manually check [deleted all] items
on the web page that require manual checking. Irrelevant items shall be omitted
(e.g. if there is no audio or video, manual checking of the textual equivalents
is irrelevant.) [deleted All] Manual check-off items shall require an explicit
action by the user for each checkpoint item the user asserts satisfies the
guidelines (e.g. it is not necessary to manually check-off each and every image
to assert that the ALT text is suitable and that a longer description is not
necessary.  One manual check for long descriptions per page with images is
sufficient. ).


Regards,
Phill Jenkins

Received on Monday, 4 October 1999 12:16:39 UTC