RE: Possible added SC to 2.5

Jason wrote:
<blockquote>
1. A label identifying the control;

2. The type of input expected (e.g., text entry, selection of an item
   from a list, selection of multiple items from a lit, etc.);

3. Where a list of options is offered, the list;

4. The current value of the control, for example the text which has
   been input, or the selected item or items in the list. The current
   value may also be a default value if the user has not interacted
   with the control;

5. If the control is marked as optional in the sense that no user
   input is needed to complete the interaction, this status should
   also be exposed.

The above is not wording intended for inclusion in the guidelines; it is
merely a sketch of requirements that are more comprehensive than the
suggestions made so far. At level 1 these or similar requirements could
apply to assistive technologies; at level 2 they could apply to the
presentation of the user interface as well.

</blockquote>
Several of the items in Jason's list strike me as user agent issues
rather than content issues (though of course the content has to be in a
form that user agents can make sense of).  For what it's worth, here is
how the US Section 508 standards for Web accessibility words the
provision about online forms:

<blockquote>
n) When electronic forms are designed to be completed on-line, the form
shall allow people using assistive technology to access the information,
field elements,
and functionality required for completion and submission of the form,
including all directions and cues.
</blockquote>

It *might* be enough for WCAG 2.0 to include something like this under
the proposed SC for 2.5.  Guideline 1.3 L1 SC1 (and thus also 2.4 L1
SC1, which coross-references 1.3) requires that "structures and
relationships within the content can be programmatically determined,"
and I think that can plausibly be interpreted as including relationships
bewteen form controls and their labels.  The General Techniques for 1.3
includes  an item (possibly not yet quite a "technique") about
*identifying* form controls by using appropriate structural markup,
whether in html or sforms, and another item about making sure that the
relationships between controls and labels is available to assistive
tehology.

Hope this helps.
John
"Good design is accessible design."

Dr. John M. Slatin, Director 
Accessibility Institute
University of Texas at Austin 
FAC 248C 
1 University Station G9600 
Austin, TX 78712 
ph 512-495-4288, fax 512-495-4524 
email jslatin@mail.utexas.edu 
Web http://www.utexas.edu/research/accessibility 



-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Jason White
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 8:15 PM
To: Mike Barta
Cc: W3C Web Content
Subject: RE: Possible added SC to 2.5



Mike Barta writes:
 > I like doyle's wording here. 
 > 
 > From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of Doyle-Work  > Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 2:36 PM  > To:
Gregg Vanderheiden; 'David MacDonald'; W3C Web Content  > Subject: Re:
Possible added SC to 2.5  > 
 > I propose the following:
 > 
 > "Forms, fields or other user input mechanisms that are required for
the successful completion of the interaction are clearly identified."  >

I read this, and then had to review the mailing list thread in order to
understand what it meant, and what problem it was supposed to solve.

As Gregg insightfully asked, what is the differential impact which makes
this more important for users with disabilities than for the population
of Web users at large?

I also think this should be generalized. What is the minimum information
that should be available to the user (via whatever user interface is in
effect) with respect to a user interface control? I propose, at a
minimum:

1. A label identifying the control;

2. The type of input expected (e.g., text entry, selection of an item
   from a list, selection of multiple items from a lit, etc.);

3. Where a list of options is offered, the list;

4. The current value of the control, for example the text which has
   been input, or the selected item or items in the list. The current
   value may also be a default value if the user has not interacted
   with the control;

5. If the control is marked as optional in the sense that no user
   input is needed to complete the interaction, this status should
   also be exposed.

The above is not wording intended for inclusion in the guidelines; it is
merely a sketch of requirements that are more comprehensive than the
suggestions made so far. At level 1 these or similar requirements could
apply to assistive technologies; at level 2 they could apply to the
presentation of the user interface as well.

I haven't mentioned option hierarchies, roles or other details that are
relevant to contemporary work in user interface design, but these would
have to be taken into account were the guidelines to move in this
direction.

Received on Sunday, 20 February 2005 01:10:22 UTC