Re: A new check for the Open Accessibility Checks

Chris,

1. Your checks# 42-47 only look at length of items marked up with heading tags and suggest possible  misuse of headings for font. I am trying to say that the check  I suggested  might indicate quite strongly that the consecutive lines marked up with a heading tag should be marked up as a list instead. 
  2. Again only detecting misuse of layout table is not enough. Such a use of a layout table might strongly indicate need to use a list markup instead.  This should be  the  suggested remediation.
  3. There are checkpoints(WCAG 1.0)  that  address proper naming of links  and also  their proper grouping. So the check I have written up that looks for redundant prefixes will detect need for grouping as well as better naming of links.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sailesh Panchang 
  To: chris.ridpath@utoronto.ca 
  Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 12:32 PM
  Subject: A new check for the Open Accessibility Checks 


  Hello Chris,
  Couple of checks I can think of  that can be incorporated and even automated:
  (By the way, is there a list of contributors where one gets a mention and acknowledgment?) 
  problem 1:
  Often items that can be marked up as a list  are not so marked up. It makes sense if one can detect  non-linked text that can be marked up as a list.
  Detection with reasonable level of certainty is possible by identifying :
  a.  consecutive lines of short text that are not in one paragraph element  which have been marked up with a heading tag (h1 to h6) at the same level. i.e. a bunch of lines all marked up as h3 or h4 etc. This also suggests misuse of heading tag for font and perhaps  need for using list structure.
  b. a layout table in which one column has a bullet (a character or an image like a star, arrow etc)  and the next column has an item of text in it 
  c. Consecutive lines with a bullet (a character or an image like a star, arrow etc)    followed by  an item of text.
  Problem 2:
  Many sites prefix  text links with word like "link to", the org's name, or  the like that results in inefficient first letter navigation of links from  within a list of links. (List of links are presented by screen-readers for instance). Also these redundant prefixxes imply that:  
  - probable need for grouping links,
  - key words or phrases are not being used to begin link names, and
  - the link is probably longer than it should be. 
  Detection with reasonable level of certainty is possible by identifying :
  A finite number (say 3 or 5, etc that is user definable) of links on a page that begin with the same word(s) 
  Sailesh Panchang
  Senior Accessibility Engineer 
  Deque Systems,11180  Sunrise Valley Drive, 
  4th Floor, Reston VA 20191
  Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105 
  E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
  Fax: 703-225-0387
  * Look up <http://www.deque.com> *


   
  References:
  [1] http://tile-cridpath.atrc.utoronto.ca/tile/accessibilitychecker/guidelines/checks.html#check42
  [2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/#hx-style
  [3] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/#lists 
  [4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-HTML-TECHS/#links
  [5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2003JulSep/0269.html