- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 13:02:10 -0400 (EDT)
- To: john_slatin <john_slatin@forum.utexas.edu>
- cc: Lisa Seeman <seeman@netvision.net.il>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
No, I don't make this assumption. I agree with you that there isn't an absolute seperation. But I do assume that in many practical circumstances there is more than one way of saying what we want to say. So, as Lisa said, we should tell authors to choose the most accessible way. As an example I don't suggest that we should explain what DNA is in every case we use it. In general we should clarify that we mean "deoxyribonucleic acid" and not "discrimantory node association". Our tools should make it easy to do so, in the ways that the web supports well. If it is a normal term to use in a given document that should be sufficient - the web allows people to find further information on it if they need it. We should not say "the double-helical molecule formed of sequential chains of compatibly paired adenine, guanine, somethingine and theotherine which is found in the central nucleus of the cell" very often, because that is more complex language than we normally need. One of the suggested success criteria from the meeting in Melbourne was that the appropriate terms be used. That is different from using very long convoluted sentences and paragraphs when it is possible to say the same thing using "plain language". What we are trying to do, I think, is work out what are the success criteria that we can apply. Most of the suggestions have been to do with ways of writing a sentence or a paragraph. They are very similar to the suggestions we seem to accept of ways to structure a page or a collection of pages. Cheers Charles On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, john_slatin wrote: Charles' message presupposes that it is possible to make an absolute distinction between "the content itself" of a document on the one hand, and on the other hand "the language used to express the content."
Received on Tuesday, 4 June 2002 13:02:13 UTC