Guideline/Checkpoint "modifiers"

We are in full agreement on the guidelines being the "what" of things; the 
techniques being the "how". We have proposed the 'informative" materials 
include the "why". We are less committed to the idea of having a "who is 
covered" section (although there is a document to that effect). The 
explanatory parts of the "what" sort of overlap the "why" and "how" parts 
in many cases, but in almost all cases both these must be attended to. An 
important inclusion with each Checkpoint is some discussion (or link to 
appropriate resource) of how conformance will be determinable.

Someone using this document will be able to learn why a particular 
checkpoint is in there, how to implement it, and how to tell whether one's 
implementation conforms. All this of course is informative data not 
necessarily (but possibly) in the actual guideline/techniques document.

In a sense the "readability" has a somewhat inverse relationship to the 
"usability" in a rough way; If it gets more "understandable" when read 
top-to-bottom (contains much of the "informative" material) it tends to be 
less "usable" in that it starts to weigh more and stay on the shelf (remain 
unloaded) more.

One "solution" to this is to have the normative document be cold/bare and 
have a rich set of links not just to the techniques as in previous version, 
but also to all of the explanatory text. This is, e.g., the strategy used 
in http://rdf.pair.com/xchecker.htm (or http://rdf.pair.com/plain.htm if 
you're put off by my garish color scheme) in which the checkpoints are 
presented verbatim with links not only to techniques and occasional tools, 
but also to the underlying guidelines. It's useless as a straight-through 
read but very helpful if one would avoid the 2" thick document syndrome. 
All of the information in the main "normative" and "informative" documents 
is there - and a lot more through references to "outside" materials: but it 
doesn't impose itself so much.

I submit this as a possible format of our 2.0 effort. At this time there is 
almost no "informative" explanatory text (in the current draft) with the 
checkpoints so a demonstration wouldn't show much, but as the explanations 
proliferate (as is sure to happen with whatever "image text" turns into), 
it will become imperative to maintain a check on "ponderosity". Without 
excessive "tersification" we can still put the weighty (and non-normative) 
materials in links that can be pulled in for those rare individuals who 
want to read the whole five pounds in one "plateful".

Whether the group does this on the fly mattereth little because I will do 
it anyway if for no other reason than my own convenience in dealing with 
this stuff. In short I am positing that some of the complaints about 
"readability" aren't about the editorial content but about the "usability" 
of the document being negatively impacted by its format.

Whachallthink?

--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Tuesday, 31 October 2000 16:21:14 UTC