Re: Thoughts on the new Draft of WCAG 2.0

[sent to the right place at last]
> >   4. Possibly create a separate summary list of guidelines for
> >   ease of visibility (to put forward the basic concepts). I.e. a
> >   list of the 6 Guidlines.
> How about in the table of contents?

Not sure. Having a list of links isn't really akin to a summary, but it's
not a bad alternative (Well, we'd need them both, so it might be a waste of
space anyway).

> it should be en-US actually.

Oops, my mistake.

> And I don't know, but since I know that there are speech
> synthesisers out there that have english and american voices, I
> would guess that the support is as for other language switching -
> unfortunately very low. For those who don't think this is a problem,
> try working with a french system that comes across some english
> content...

Does this mean the document shouldn't be referred to as en-US rather than
just en? There's no harm specifiying the exact language used, but I agree
that not much software takes note of it. i.e. may as well include it for
forwards compatability.

> >   SBP: 10. !important! - Include a checkpoint about adding metadata to
> >   describe regular data.
> CMN: One possiblity would be to revisit our understanding of alternative
> content. In a lot of cases this means text, but text isn't always
> appropriate, there is no known way to write a number of signed languages
> in text, and metadata can be used to provide information that can
> be presented in different output modes the same way that text can
> (but with wider possiblities).

My idea was something a bit similar to what ERT is doing: metadata to
describe accessibility aspects of a document - but that doesn't stop us from
specifying many accessibiliy checkpoints for metadata (e.g. your suggestion
about alternative content).

> Hmmm. I reckon that the proposed use is probably valid, according to the
> specification.

Yes. Let me clarify that for people unsure of the particulars:-
"VAR: Indicates an instance of a variable or program argument." -
http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-VAR
I would have hoped for a longer explaination, but there you go.
"CODE: Designates a fragment of computer code. " - c. ibid.

> I think something like "Use the HTML heading elements <code>h1</code>,
> <code>h2</code>, ..." is better english expression.

It was a bit picky of me to point it out in the first place, and it depends
on what level we need to go to. If we really went for it, you could put:-

"Use the XHTML heading elements <dfn><code title="XHTML Level 1 Heading
code">h1</code> to <code title="XHTML Level 6 Heading code">h6</code></dfn>,
..."

(Added titles and <dfn> because it is a definition of the XHTML heading
elements), but that would be going over the top!

Another point to raise in a similar vein is the correct useage of <acronym>
and <abbr>, c.f. discussions on WAI IG and www-html, but this is all just me
being pedantic ;-)

Kindest Regards,
Sean B. Palmer
http://xhtml.waptechinfo.com/swr/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/
"Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics."
   - Homer J. Simpson, BABF07.

Received on Thursday, 23 November 2000 10:47:14 UTC