Re: Fixed-presentation formats

I think this rolls us back around to "essential purpose" (persistant, 
aren't I).

Here's why.

Janson says "give preference".  He doesn't say it's an absolute 
requirement.  Only a preference.

This only means something, it seems to me, if the preference is being 
balanced against something else.

And the only legitimate thing I can think of to balance it against, is the 
essential purpose of the site.

Len



At 05:44 PM 10/30/00 -0500, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>A highly impersonal view <grin/> that is all my fault and nobody else's
>responsibility...
>
>I think Jason has captured this pretty nicely as a first take. I would edit
>the proposal a bit, as follows:
>
>x.y Use data formats that support the application of these guidelines.
>
>Different markup languages, multimedia formats, interface standards, etc.,
>have different levels of support for accessibility. It is important to use
>technologies that allow the greatest possible application of accessibility
>requirements, and that are supported by available software.
>
>Techniques:
>Languages that allow the author to meet the checkpoints for marking up
>content (for example have support for text alternatives to non-text elements,
>differentiate between structural markup and presentation hints, etc) should
>be preferred to "fixed form" languages.
>
>W3C Recommendations are reviewed to ensure that they provide support for
>accessibility, and software that allows for authoring of accessible content
>as well as presentation of content in an accessible way is often widely
>available by the time a W3C specification becomes a recommendation.
>
>And maybe some of the more specific poiint by point stuff Jason has, and some
>of the rationale he had at the beginning of his message.
>
>cheers
>
>Charles McCN
>
>Jason wrote...
>[snip]
>   <dt>Give preference to data formats and software protocols which support
>   the application of these guidelines.
>   <dd>
>   <p>Markup languages, multimedia formats, software interface standards,
>   etc., vary in the extent to which they support the requirements of
>   accessibility. In choosing which technologies to use, it is therefore
>   important to take into account the extent to which they facilitate
>   application of these guidelines. Content developers should thus favour,
>   where practicable, solutions which
>   <ol>
>   <li>permit text equivalents to be associated with auditory and graphical
>   content, and multimedia presentations, if applicable, to be synchronized
>   with text equivalents (guideline 1);
>   <li>allow the logical structure of the content to be defined,
>   independently of presentation (guideline 2);
>   <li>enable the content creator to specify a consistent presentational
>   style (guidelines 3 and 4);
>   <li>support device-independent input events (guideline 5);
>   <li>are documented in published specifications and can be implemented by
>   user agent and assistive technology developers;
>   <li>are supported by user agents and assistive technologies
>   </ol>
>   <p>Note: to satisfy these requirements, a combination of different
>   technologies will ordinarily be required.
>   </dd>
>
>   This isn't exactly polished,, draft-quality material and I am offering it
>   not for inclusion in the next draft, but as a possible line of thinking
>   that might be discussed and developed further if members of the working
>   group consider this appropriate.
>
>   Opinions herein are my own, personal views.
>
>
>
>--
>Charles McCathieNevile    mailto:charles@w3.org    phone: +61 (0) 409 134 136
>W3C Web Accessibility Initiative                      http://www.w3.org/WAI
>Location: I-cubed, 110 Victoria Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia
>September - November 2000:
>W3C INRIA, 2004 Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, 
>France

--
Leonard R. Kasday, Ph.D.
Institute on Disabilities/UAP and Dept. of Electrical Engineering at Temple 
University
(215) 204-2247 (voice)                 (800) 750-7428 (TTY)
http://astro.temple.edu/~kasday         mailto:kasday@acm.org

Chair, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Evaluation and Repair Tools Group
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/

The WAVE web page accessibility evaluation assistant: 
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

Received on Thursday, 2 November 2000 11:17:35 UTC