Re: Clarification of checkpoint 7.4

At 05:10 PM 8/18/2000 , Ian Jacobs wrote:
> > What if the autorefresh page has
> > a large warning on the front?  What if the time between refreshes
> > is user-configurable?  
>That's a user agent capacity (that is not required by the UAAG 1.0,
>by the way: we only say the UA has to allow the user to access
>the new content manually).

<form>
   <p>
   The following page will autorefresh at a frequency you can choose.
   If you choose now and it's too fast or too slow, you can press
   the 'options' button to return to this menu.
   </p>
   <label for="secs">
     How many seconds should there be between each refresh?
     (Enter 0 or leave blank for no refresh.)
   </label>
   <input type="text" name="seconds" id="secs" value="0" />
   <input name="submit" value="Show the next page" />
</form>

> > What if the page also includes prominent
> > controls that say "halt autorefresh" and "resume autorefresh"?
>Generalized:
>  Until user agents do A, or unless you the author do A, etc.
>However, if the author provides a mechanism that is not
>interoperable, users are likely to lose.

Right, but it's possible to do this in a way that doesn't break
things.  For example, let's say I explicitly state up front "this
way of accessing the content requires javascript" (so that I can
use Javascript for this version of the interface), and then I
write a nice little javascript that waits <n> seconds -- as set
by the form above -- and then reloads the page.  But before I
do that, I check to see if the "halt autorefresh" button has
been pressed.  (This called another javascript which saved state
in some manner.)  If it has, then I don't go ahead with the
autorefresh.

That's just a trivial example, but assuming that I have a page
that's accessible to non-javascript browsers, I don't think I'm
introducing any additional accessibility errors.  Or am I?

>My only fear is if the "making sure" part requires proprietary
>technology, etc. 

Sometimes proprietary technologies, if used correctly, can be
enabling.  For example, there are more controls available to
the user in a Quicktime animation than in an animated gif.  You
can pause, stop, restart, back up, etc in Quicktime, and you
don't have that level of control in gif animation.

-- 
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://www.khyri.com/icann/

Received on Friday, 18 August 2000 20:27:02 UTC