Re: ERT XHTML Module for the WAI

At 6:53 PM +0000 11/18/00, Sean B. Palmer wrote:
>Dear Colleagues,
>I recently came up with the idea that the ERT Group could issue an XHTML
>Module [1] to take away some of the elements causing accessibility problems
>in XHTML 1.1 [2], and add some of our own to improve accessibility.

An interesting idea, Sean.  Part of the danger, though, is that
concentrating _too much_ accessibility information within one module
may make it too easy to completely exclude accessibility consideration
all together.  (By "not supporting" the accessibility module.)

As Len says, a solution may be to state "if you use XHTML 1.1 or
higher, use {some set of accessibility modules}".  Since there is
little-to-no actual support for XHTML modularization these days,
now is the right time to work on this.

Of course, the question remains as to who could work on a module
of this sort.  I don't know if the XHTML working group would want
to take it on (nor do they necessarily have the expertise), but
on the other hand, it is out of charter for the existing WAI groups
as I understand them.  (I don't know of any which have the mandate
to produce new XHTML elements/attributes.)

I think it's a worthy endeavour, though, and I suggest that this
be bumped up to the WAI coordination level for discussion.

--Kynn
-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
http://www.kynn.com/

Received on Monday, 20 November 2000 15:42:19 UTC