[techs] proposal to replace use of "rules"

Hello,

A while ago (january 2002?), when we began making the techniques documents 
more testable we used the phrase "rules" for the testable statements.  For 
a reminder of what this looks like, refer to the HTML Techniques [1]. We 
didn't want to use "checkpoint" or "criterion" since we wanted to 
distinguish the technology-specifics from the general guidelines and 
checkpoints.

However, there are many acknowledged issues with the term "rule."  e.g., it 
could be confused with the 508 rules, it may be interpreted as being too 
prescriptive. etc.  Thus, to continue the discussion about what term to use 
instead, here is a proposal.  First, at the top level we currently have:
Guidelines which are made up of checkpoints
Checkpoints which are made up of success criteria
success criteria

I propose that at the technology-specific level we have:
(one or many) techniques that show how to meet a top-level success criterion
a technique is a combination of:
- the technique (e.g., "Use the meta element to...")
- examples
- descriptions
- etc. (all the other stuff from the schema and techniques requirements)

for those of you interested in the schema, i think we can continue to use 
the element "rule" but when we generate documents from the xml we do 
something along the following:

====
TITLE: the document title

Techniques:
Use the TITLE element to describe the document.
====

Basically, replace "Rules" with "Techniques."

--wendy

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/wcagtech020320.html

-- 
wendy a chisholm
world wide web consortium
web accessibility initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
/--

Received on Tuesday, 28 January 2003 13:01:58 UTC