Indexing

I've been using the word "indexing" a lot and tying it in with RDF and 
trying to get something that furthers it into the guidelines.

Whenever I get a (non-fiction) book about something I have any familiarity 
with I look first in the index to learn a lot almost instantly/painlessly - 
even before the Table of Contents. Occasionally I consult bibliography, 
seldom get deep into the notes (whether they're on the referring page or in 
a collection at the end), and almost always go really fast through the 
acknowledgements.

All of these items (well, maybe not the footnotes) are important enough 
metadata (information about the content of the book) that it is extremely 
rare that any of them is missing. Edition #, copyright information, notes 
about the formatting/typography/+ are usually of more interest to 
publishing specialists. At any rate all of this stuff is taken for granted 
in books (and in fact in magazines and newspapers) so it should come as no 
surprise that although the Web is a completely different medium, because of 
the fact that it (in one of its major guises) presents not only information 
but information about the information, its parallels with certain forms of 
print media is valid.

Without that metadata a book is very poor. Same for Web Content.

Does this have to do with our scope/charter/accessibility/+?

IMO it is absolutely central to accessibility for PWDs (Persons with 
disability) - as well as TABs (Temporarily able bodied). The ultimate 
"electronic curb-cut" might well be that Content on the Web, by becoming 
accessibile to our friends/clients, also becomes *much* more usable by 
everybody.

What I am proposing is a means of 
enhancing/recommending/requiring/educating/+ the use of adequate indexing 
in all Web Content at a P1 level. Because Charles so timely stated 
"Objectivity is also a subjective concept" then the idea of a "barrier" 
making the Web beyond merely "difficult" to use - bordering on impossible - 
is clearly tenable from the POV of getting to the information strewn about 
on the shoulders of the infobahn.

Before even attempting to use a Website, one must find out if it's in one's 
native language, whether it's accessible (and whether its claim of 
conformance is testable), and if there is any information about its content 
given,and if so, what is its nature.

These sound like rather heavy demands at first until one examines parallel 
experiential histories undergone before entering into a book acquisition. A 
great many books are useless without indices and for PWDs with certain 
conditions they are useless without, e.g. claimed-to-be-useful 
illustrations, and other features that rise above merely useful to 
mandatory. The starting notion is that every element of a site ("element" 
in both the sense that term is used in markup languages and as used in 
everyday speech) must be revealed/referenceable/indexed.

The techniques for this are very similar to the familiar ones from other 
media: indexing; tables of contents; "Dublin Core-like" stuff. The 
guideline is quite abstract/general though not-yet-written but why write it 
if we don't agree on its principle: access to Web Content requires 
information *about* the content to be readily available without the need to 
actually "buy the book".

Anybody care to join me?



--
Love.
                 ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE

Received on Saturday, 23 December 2000 11:22:25 UTC