Re issue 330: proposed wording to replace "programmatically determined"

-         This is the third of several messages proposing new wording
for success criteria that contain one of the following phrases, which
were discussed during the 5 August WCAG WG call: 

 

The terms were listed in the agenda [1].

1.    Derived programmatically (GL 1.3 L1 SC1 and SC2)

2.    Programmatically identified (GL 3.2 L2 SC1)

3.    Programmatically determined (GL 3.1 L2 SC2, and SC6)

4.    Programmatically located (GL 3.1 L1 SC2 and GL 3.1 L2 SC1)

 

As I understood the discussion, people who participated in the call
agreed about the following (I don't remember whether there was formal
consensus):

1.    The four terms should be reduced to two:

a.     Proposal: replace "derived programmatically" and
"programmatically identified" with "programmatically determined."

2.    Proposal: Define programmatically determined to mean "is available
in a standard machine-readable form (e.g., in a standard markup, data
model or metadata)"

3.    Further attempts to define "programmatically located" should be
deferred until after the 11 August joint call with PFWG.

 

Further discussion off-list about potential ambiguities of the word
"standard" led to a further refinement of the definition of
"programmatically determined": Programmatically determined="available in
machine-readable form (e.g., in markup, metadata, or a data model)."

There was a related discussion off-list about the term "explicitly
associated" (used in 1.1 L1)  The question was whether an association
that could be recognized by humans but not by user agents would satisfy
the intent of "explicitly associated."      The feeling was that an
association that could be recognized only by a human and not by a user
agent was not good enough.

 

Based on these discussions, I've taken the affected success criteria and
(1) replaced the now-obsolete terms (derived programmatically and
programmatically identified) with programmatically determined and (2)
replaced programmatically determined with the definition language. I've
done the same thing for 1.1, the only occurrence of "explicitly
associated" in the 30 July WD [2].

 


Success criteria that currently include the phrase Programmatically
determined


Guideline 3.1 L2 SC2


<current>

2. The meaning of all idioms in the content can be programmatically
determined.

</current>

 

<proposed: include definition in success criterion>

2. The meaning of all idioms in the content is available in
machine-readable form (e.g., In markup, metadata, or a data model,).

</proposed: include definition in success criterion>


Guideline 3.2 L2 SC6


<current>

6. The destination of each link is identified through words or phrases
that either occur in the link or can be programmatically determined. [V]

</current>

<proposed: include definition in success criterion>

The destination of each link is identified through words or phrases that
either occur in the link or in machine-readable form (e.g., in markup,
metadata, or a data model).

</proposed: include definition in success criterion>

 

  [1]
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0318.html
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0318.html> 

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/ <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/> 

 

"Good design is accessible design." 
John Slatin, Ph.D.
Director, Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin
FAC 248C
1 University Station G9600
Austin, TX 78712
ph 512-495-4288, f 512-495-4524
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu
web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility/
<http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility/>