RE: Suggestion for this Editorial Note

Gregg asked:

Editorial Note: We are looking for a word to replace "page" that applies
across technologies. For visual applications, "screen" would apply, but
would not apply for speech-based technologies such as VoiceXML.

 

How about 'media'

 

Print media

Paper media

Screen media

Voice/Speech media

"Media" is too broad in my opinion. "Media" has many different meanings. One
of which is "means of mass communication". This is the meaning in which the
word is used almost exclusively in the Netherlands. I can imagine many
people confusing "print media" with newspapers, "screen media" with TV,
"speech media" with radio, etc. 

 

Also, the word "media" doesn't make sense in the context we're using page at
the moment:

 

"Organize content consistently from "page to page" ..."

becomes

"Organize content consistently from media to media ..." which has a totally
different meaning from which we want to say. "From media to media" sounds to
me like you have to make sure the content is organized consistently between
different types of media.

 

My suggestion is to work around the problem by eliminating the reference to
pages altogether:

 

<suggestion>

Guideline 3.2:

Organize content consistently throughout the resource and make interactive
components behave in predictable ways.

 

Level 2, SC 1:

Components that are repeated in different places within the resource occur
in the same sequence each time they are repeated, for at least one
presentation format.

 

Level 2, SC 3:

Changing the setting of any input field should not automatically cause an
<http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#extreme-changedef> extreme change in context
such as changing the current location within the resource. 

 

Level 2, SC 4:

Interactive elements that appear in different places within the resource,
including graphical elements, are associated with the same functionality
wherever they appear.

</suggestion>

 

The old phrasing only talked about consistent behavior between pages, but
why narrow it to that? Within a page, you do not want the same interactive
element associatiated with different functionality either.That's why I like
"in different places within the resource" better than "in multiple pages".

 

Yvette Hoitink
Heritas, Enschede, the Netherlands

E-mail: y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl

WWW: http://www.heritas.nl