Remarks to (master) guidelines

Unfortunately I had to leave the november 11 meeting before it ended
to get on my plane. Because of this I missed the last part of the
guidelines discussion.
Through this message I would like to express something that has not been
mentioned at all duering the first part of the guidelines discussion:
I think the version 8 (master) guidelines are a good document.
Thanks to Wendy and Gregg for the work on this.

Still I have some remakrs. This concerns the wish - from my side - to
keep arguments for a certain decision clean.
Before the monday meeting started I gave the remakrs below to Gregg
and by means of htis message I would like to reflect them through htis lsit.
Best regards,
Jaap

Message from: Jaap van Lelieveld      The Netherlands
              Chairman of EBU commission on Technical Devices and Services
E-mail:       Jaap.van.Lelieveld@inter.nl.net

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From: Jaap van Lelieveld

Date: 10 November 1997

Subject: Remarks to the (master) guidelines document

While reading the guidelines I ran into several places where arguments
are given why to follow these guidelines. I would like to propose to:
-     collect the arguments and put them in area paragraph.
-     to leave out arguments that are not specific for the target group but have a
      financial background.

Below I give an overview of the arguments, areas where they
can be found and a proposal which arguments to remove or add.


paragraphs 10.1 13.2 17.1:
Screen readers:
The argument is used that screen readers "can not" identify certain
things on the screen. This should be divided into two groups:
1.    Things screen readers can not do because the necessary information does not exist
      (e.g. bitmaps) information, and
2.    information the screen reader does not use although it is there (e.g. colour
      changes, font changes etc).

Only examples from the first group should be accepted as valid arguments.
Examples from the second group should be forwarded to screen reader 
producers to ask them to enhance there systems. Where screen readers can not 
solve this (e.g. in an old DOS environment where such information gets lost
because of the display capabilities of the browser) this requirement can be
forwarded to the browser producer.
Possible user requirements:
-     The screen reader should offer the optional facility to inform the user of:
      - font changes 
      - colour changes 
      - empty space both in the horizontal and vertical direction.
      - an intelligent mechanism to identify column usage. 
      - A feature to read previously identified columns.


Argument to be removed from 14.1:
"they do not have the proper software"
"have a slow data connection"
"or they do not have a high resolution display"
"they do not have the proper software hardware or enough memory to run the software"
"have a slow data connection"

14.2:
"If you have a slow modem connection"

14.4:
some users do not want to download them because of bandwidth

These arguments are invalid; the argument someone does not have a PC is not acceptable
too. These arguments do not have anything to do with a disability. If they are valid it is
because of another reason.




Arguments to add 14.2:
add to 2: make sure alternate media are available and are displayed in the proper way.

add to 19.1 user agents 2:
Allow a audio signal to be enabled when a (new) page arrives.
This can be a useful feature even not in a automatic update case.


One super-argument that added is the financial barrier to buy technology. This is not a
technical problem but something that should be solved outside the WAI framework. If
governments and (big) companies force anybody to access their information society might
take the responsibility to allow EVERYBODY to have access in a acceptable way.

Received on Wednesday, 12 November 1997 15:01:26 UTC