evaluation AND REPAIR Language? (EARL)

The Evaluation Description Language could also be used to carry repair 
information (requiring a name change, e.g. to Evaluation AND Repair 
Language, or EARL.

For example, we've already decided that EDL would have statements that an 
image in a site has missing ALT text.

We could add a statement that the particular ALT text should be added, e.g. 
a statement containing a pointer to an image, and the suggested ALT text, 
e.g. "underwater epoxy putty".

The repair part of the language be used by people who consult on web sites 
to report not just accessibility but also the repairs they recommend.

Or the statements could be provided by an independent service, e.g. as 
described in Daniel's ALT-server paper http://www.w3.org/WAI/altserv.htm. 
The independent service could be a web site simply storing repair 
information from volunteers as a public service.  User agents, or other web 
based services, could incorporate the repairs transparently into the 
page.  This could be useful to an organization such as a university that 
uses outside sites that are inacccessible but which the institution has no 
control over.  Plus it could of course be directly useful to any 
individual.  I'm thinking though that if institutions need it it could 
create a funding stream.

What do you-all think?

Len


--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple 
University
(215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

Received on Thursday, 14 December 2000 12:25:45 UTC