- From: Chuck Hitchcock <chitchcock@cast.org>
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 15:56:57 -0400
- To: "Wendy A Chisholm" <chisholm@trace.wisc.edu>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Wendy, Not sure I need to send regrets since I am not really a member of the working group. I do want to participate in the cognitive issues work but cannot join today's phone conference. I did take a look at the initial draft document aligning disability categories with the checkpoints and feel that it moves the work in a useful direction. I am concerned about the multilayered approach to establishing priorities and find it difficult to imagine that most web developers will want that much detail. It seems more likely that a small set of issues related to disability should be attended to and might then be explained in the FAQ type document. A limited number of items might then be considered for future versions of the content guidelines. I also suspect that it will be difficult to separate impact from purpose. For example, if the intent of a website is to simply provide information, then the importance of a particular checkpoint might differ from one that wants the "user" to take action, learn something new, apply what is learned to some new endeavor, or perhaps be entertained. As you know, many of the critical concerns overlap various categorical labels for disabilities. Labels or categories that I might find useful would include: 1. Attention / Concentration 2. Memory a. Procedural (how to do something) b. Semantic (perception, storage and retrieval of information and events) 3. Language a. Oral (receptive and expressive) b. Written (including low level readers, non-readers and written expression) 4. Organization a. Visual / Spatial b. Temporal / Sequential 5. Higher Order Thinking (including problem solving) 6. Affect / Emotion 7. Metacognition a. Self-monitoring b. Analytical thinking c. Practical thinking d. Creative thinking This is probably a bit too much detail for this purpose but the headings next to the numbers could be used as the critical topics. There are other embedded issues like rate or pace of processing and responding or providing options or choices for those who need to be in control of the information or learning environment. We have also been discussing specifics like readability and challenge or resistance. Under organization issues like orientation come to mind (where am I on the page or site, what are my choices right now?). Obviously I have not attended to the sensory and physical issues and, of course, they are no less important. Chuck
Received on Thursday, 12 August 1999 15:56:00 UTC