Re: Evaluation results: new tags

See my reply below. Judy, your comments are appreciated.

> >For the Techniques document:
> >Accesskey, Longdesc, Headers and IDs, etc. were often perceived by
> >participants to be 'special', which meant that they were less confident in
> >transferring their existing knowledge while implementing them.  For
> >example, Participants did not expect ALT to be displayed at the same time
> >as the image, but they were unsure whether Longdesc would be displayed in
> >Netscape or IE.
> >
> >Related problem:
> >Some of the new tags are not described in HTML 4.0 reference books, maybe
> >because they are perceived to be 'only' accessibility tags.
> >
> >Potential solution:
> >* There may therefore be a need for the Guidelines / Techniques to provide
> >additional support for implementing these tags.
> >
> >* Participants said that they would like examples of how tags, especially
> >new tags, might be rendered in mainstream browsers and how screen readers
> >may deal with them.  This has been provided for Tables and may also be
> >useful for others, such as Longdesc and D-link.

The HTML 4.0 intentionally does not discuss how new elements and
attributes are to be presented. The HTML WG also elected
to say very little about the semantics of "longdesc" and in 
particular how the user agent should make the information available
to the user. The details were postponed, I believe until
they could be addressed by the WAI. It seems as though the
time has come and you are requesting further specifications for 
the attributes and elements particularly relevant to accessibility.

In my opinion, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
is not the right forum for resolving these problems. Rather,
it is some combination of WAI Working Groups. Judy,
should this be taken to the WAI CG?

 - Ian

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) 
Tel/Fax: (212) 684-1814 
http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs

Received on Monday, 15 March 1999 17:51:04 UTC