Re: user-friendly

At 04:57 PM 10/27/00 +1100, Jason White wrote:
>an attentive reader, with limited technical knowledge, who reads the 
>guidelines and checkpoints together with any accompanying
>introductory material, explanations, definitions etc., should be able to 
>understand the requirements of accessibility which are set forth in the 
>document.

William submits that if this criterion is applied to WCAG 1.0 then that 
document can be determined either to have met/failed that test. If it meets 
it (depending on what "attentive", "should", "understand", and "limited" 
mean), and I think it probably does, we are being exercised over nothing. 
The complaints we received about it's opacity (would our test subject know 
what that *really* means?) were from people who didn't meet the definition 
of "an attentive reader".

If the experimental "guideline guide" at http://rdf.pair.com/xguide.htm is 
multiplied manifold to include versions for many audiences it may be that 
simply writing/drawing/sounding several "sloganized" statements of the 
guidelines will satisfy the pending requirement. I have no doubt that we 
can come up with a large number of terse, various-grade-level statements 
of/about each guideline/checkpoint. The ones I've included in the guide 
(with input from Al Gilman and Lisa Seeman) might be the tip of an iceberg.

In his "review" of this document, Jason said "Well done--a very good set of 
slogans, capturing in a memorable way the essentials of the guidelines. I 
would certainly recommend this as a non-technical overview, and I would, 
along with you and others, resist any attempt to substitute this for the 
more precise wording of the actual document." I found this flattering and 
also am checking to see that the promised "resistance" is forthcoming.

As I will be endlessly repeating over the next few weeks (hopefully that's 
all it will take) that we must get on with these 2.0 tasks. I propose that 
we at least try to prepare various sets of "inserts" into something like 
the "guideline guide" to satisfy the newly-acquired deliverable of the new 
charter wording. These "slogans" can dictate the tone of a series of 
"explanatory intros" - the introductory/explanatory material is by 
definition "informative" rather than "normative".

I will, with Jason resist any attempt to dilute the necessarily precise 
wording of the checkpoints/guidelines themselves.

And what the hell am I doing up at 3 AM?

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Friday, 27 October 2000 05:55:36 UTC