RE: Reconsidering the wording of our main guidelines

I like this too.

One of the things that I would suggest is that we reinforce the ideas that:

1. Order of checkpoints is not significant
2. We care about all kinds of accessibility

And I would suggest we do it by changing the order. I think there is a
general perception that WCAG 1 didn't provide a lot of support for things
which are clearly crucial to the accessibility, as well as the general
success, of a site - clear writing, usable navigation structures,
illustration, etc.

If we start with the things that designers realise they are trying to do -
communicate clearly - we get to point out that these things are not strange
requirements but normal parts of what people expect. We should be clear in
the introduction that some things are of this nature - things we expect
designers to be somewhat familiar with - and other things are more technical
requirements to make things work with specific technologies.

I would also move the old 1.3 and 1.5 (3.2 and 3.3 in Paul's proposal) into
section 2, since they are about providing for user preferences (by providing
support for users to reconfigure as far as they want and are able).

just my 2c worth

cheers

Chaals

On Fri, 1 Mar 2002 gian@stanleymilford.com.au wrote:

  This seems like a good idea.
   
     -----Original Message-----
     From: paulb [mailto:paulb@cpd2.usu.edu]
         

        1.0 MAKE THE CONTENT AVAILABLE to a broad range of users and
        technologies.

        1.1             Provide a text equivalent for all non-text
        content.

        1.2             Provide synchronized media equivalents for
        time-dependent presentations.

        1.3             *Identify the primary natural language of text and
        text equivalents and all changes in natural language (previously
        1.4).

        1.4             * Choose technologies that support the use of
        these guidelines (previously 4.1).

        1.5             * Use technologies according to
        specification(previously  4.2).

        1.6             * Design user interfaces compatible with assistive
        technology(previously  4.3) .

        1.7             * Use device-independent event handlers
        (previously 2.5).

        1.8             * Ensure that content remains usable when
        technologies that modify default user agent processing or behavior
        are turned off or not supported  (previously  4.4)  .



         

        2.0 ALLOW FOR USER NEEDS AND PREFERENCES.

        2.1             Provide multiple site navigation mechanisms.

        2.2             Provide consistent and predictable responses to
        user actions.

        2.3             Either give users control of mechanisms that cause
        extreme changes in context or warn them of pending changes.

        2.4             Either give users control over how long they can
        interact with content that requires a timed response or give them
        as much time as possible.

        2.5             *Avoid causing the screen to flicker (previously
        2.6).

        2.6             *Handle input errors, such as misspellings
        (previously 2.7).

         

        3.0 MAKE THE CONTENT COMPREHENSIBLE.

        3.1             Use consistent presentation.

        3.2             *Use markup or a data model to provide the logical
        structure of content (previously 1.3).

        3.3             *Separate content and structure from presentation
        (previously 1.5).

        3.4             *Emphasize structure through presentation,
        positioning, and labels (previously 3.2).

        3.5             *Write as clearly and simply as is appropriate for
        the content (previously 3.3).

        3.6             *Supplement text with non-text content (previously
        3.4).

        3.7             *Annotate complex, abbreviated, or unfamiliar
        information with summaries and definitions (previously 3.5).



        Paul Bohman
        Technology Coordinator
        WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
        www.webaim.org
        Center for Persons with Disabilities
        www.cpd.usu.edu
        Utah State University
        www.usu.edu






-- 
Charles McCathieNevile    http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  phone: +61 409 134 136
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative     http://www.w3.org/WAI    fax: +1 617 258 5999
Location: 21 Mitchell street FOOTSCRAY Vic 3011, Australia
(or W3C INRIA, Route des Lucioles, BP 93, 06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France)

Received on Friday, 1 March 2002 04:01:19 UTC