- From: Jonathan O'Donnell <jod999@yahoo.com.au>
- Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 23:42:36 +1100 (EST)
- To: goliver@accease.com, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
--- goliver@accease.com wrote: > In the minutes Annuska asks for a definition of > normative > Annuska you may be interested in the thread that > starts > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2001OctDec/0101.html Hi Graham and others In that thread, Anne Pemberton describes how people in the Education discipline understand 'normative'. [1] Other disciplines have widely differing definitions. Economics: "Normative: subjective, value laden, emotional" [2] This seems to be exactly opposite to our understanding. Ethics: "...normative theory tries to tell us how things ought to be (people ought to be honest)" [3] As opposed to Descriptive theory, which "...tries to explain how things are (e.g., this paper is white)" And even studies of the future: "The word, "Normative," then, is a type of foresight that deals with preferable futures" [4] As opposed to 'plausable', or 'possible' futures. It seems that we should use it in the very strict sense of the discourse on standards, or not use it at all. The User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 defines it as: "...that on which the requirements of this document depend for their most precise statement." [5] Can't we just point to that definition? [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2001OctDec/0109.html [2] http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/course/are012/lecture/lectur1/tsld005.htm [3] http://www.stedwards.edu/ursery/norm.htm [4] http://www.cl.uh.edu/futureweb/spaceship.html [5] http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/glossary.html#def-normative ===== Jonathan O'Donnell mailto:jonathan.odonnell@ngv.vic.gov.au http://purl.nla.gov.au/net/jod http://my.yahoo.com.au - My Yahoo! - It's My Yahoo! Get your own!
Received on Thursday, 31 January 2002 07:42:37 UTC