RE: Automatic loading of pages

I'm not certain that page refreshes are a accessibility problem.  This is a
useful feature for:

* HTML based email and groupware
* news headlines
* stock tickers
* HTML based chat

I don't think that if a page has it, it should automatically fail.  Regular
applications present new data all the time, my Windows-based email client
regularly checks for new messages and updates the list.  The same is true
for my HTML based version of email.

What's annoying is when you are redirected from one page to another.  "This
page has moved.  Click the link below or wait 1 second and we'll take you
automatically."

This is bad behavior for any application, HTML based or not and should be
warned against, but refreshing the content of an current page should not be
discouraged.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason White [mailto:jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.EDU.AU]
Sent: Friday, April 24, 1998 8:25 PM
To: WAI Markup Guidelines
Subject: Automatic loading of pages


During the past few months, I have noticed that some HTML documents
include a non-standard feature whereby a new page will be automatically
loaded after a predetermined period of time has elapsed. I can not
remember what the non-standard markup is which gives rise to this
phenomenon, but I am sure that other members of the GL working group would
be familiar with it. The guidelines should discourage authors from using
this feature, not only because it is, presumably, a proprietary HTML
extension, but more importantly, in recognition of the observation that
readers who are using screen access technology or for whom navigation is
difficult may not have time to familiarise themselves with the initial
page before the prescribed time period expires.

Incidentally, Lynx 2.8 treats this construct as though it were an ordinary
link and does not load the new page automatically, regardless of the
timing which the author has specified. Perhaps this issue should also be
brought to the attention of the user agent guidelines group.

Received on Saturday, 25 April 1998 12:05:02 UTC