- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 14:32:41 -0700
- To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Just some scattered thoughts on what the "principles" are. The level of granularity and resolution can vary a -lot- even if we want to keep this entirely technology-agnostic. On the simplest level, I define the guiding principle of web accessibility as: "Don't assume that everyone uses the web the same way." I can't think of a single (technology-agnostic or otherwise) principle, guideline, or checkpoint that doesn't flow from that. On the other hand, it's not very useful. Are we trying to define a philosophy, a religion, a mindset as a W3C specification? Will the Advisory Committee (who approve the guidelines) and TimBL (who also does) sign off on such a document? Has anyone asked either of them what they would like to see us deliver? It's possible that they'd _prefer_ to approve a technology-specific set of guidelines over a generic set of philosophies. At one time I wrote something called "six principles of web accessibility." It's on the HWG web site at: http://www.hwg.org/resources/accessibility/sixprinciples.html (Also accessible from http://kynn.com/+6principles) I defined six core ideas: I. Create pages that conform to accepted standards. II. Know the difference between structural and presentational elements; use stylesheets when appropriate. III. Use HTML 4.0 features to provide information about the purpose and function of elements. IV. Make sure your pages can be navigated by keyboard. V. Provide alternative methods to access non-textual content, including images, scripts, multimedia, tables, forms and frames, for user agents that do not display them. VI. Be wary of common pitfalls that can reduce the accessibility of your site. "I" is properly T-A (technology-agnostic) and basically says use the standards, don't use non-standard stuff. That's a good one. "II" is good although the reference to stylesheets sounds more like a strategy than pure principle. A better way to write this is "separate content from presentation." "III" is quite clearly technology-biased (T-B) because it refers to HTML 4.0 by name. And it's much more of a HTDTRT guideline than a guiding principle. It doesn't really belong, does it? "IV" is nice and vague in a way, but it's also a special case -- keyboard access refers to a specific input device. Better to say "make sure your site can be navigated by any input device." That's real easy to say, though, isn't it? "V" sounds like it's straight from the WCAG. It probably is. A better principle is "always have the ability to fall back upon structured plain text to express content". "VI" is a nasty hack. In the original document it was a catch-all to contain things that didn't fit. I would rather say "be aware of deficiencies in common browsers and access methods, and compensate appropriately whenever possible." It may not be possible to be properly T-A and still provide any sort of useful information. -- Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com> http://kynn.com/ Director of Accessibility, Edapta http://www.edapta.com/ Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet http://www.idyllmtn.com/ AWARE Center Director http://www.awarecenter.org/ Vote for Liz for N. Am. ICANN Nominee! http://kynn.com/+icann
Received on Tuesday, 15 August 2000 17:43:04 UTC