Re: GL 3.2 - Proposals for resolving 10 issues

> 10.) allow the user to select different page layout templates for
> presentation of pages. (e.g. 3 column, linear, adding extra orientation or
> navigation elements, etc.)
> Recommend reject.
> This doesn't seem to be applicable to GL 3.2 which is about predictable
> placement and functionality of content. This is about allowing the user to
> choose from several options for viewing the content.
> This seems like a good usability "feature" but out of scope for
> accessibility guidelines.

Oh, no, no, no. If you reject that then you're pretty much rejecting the 
available research and obvious utility of zoom layouts for low-vision 
people.

<http://joeclark.org/access/webaccess/zoom/>

Authors may use CSS to set up sites so they can be configured to the 
user's choosing. That could be a single column with reverse type, a single 
column with positive type, or less content, for example. That's why we 
have stylesheet switchers.

This is to be supported, not rejected.

> - Users expect user agents to change the context (that is, load a new page)
> whenever they select a link or a submit button. They can be surprised and
> confused, however, if the context changes when they are simply navigating
> through the Web page or changing the setting of a form field. The surprise
> and confusion is more severe for users who are blind and can't see that a
> new page is loading but simply hear their screen reader suddenly start
> reading an entirely new page.

This is the presumed outcome when JavaScript is used that way, but I would 
prefer actual testing before we go off on a tangent and say it doesn't 
work. I recall asking some people about this when researching my book and 
the examples worked fine for them; just the new information appeared as if 
there were never any old information.

<http://joeclark.org/book/sashay/serialization/Chapter12.html#h1-2980>

An example of this you can look at yourself is signing up for a Gmail 
account. Try hitting the "check availability" button. Another example is 
live comment preview on blogs.

-- 

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
       --This.
       --What's wrong with top-posting?

Received on Wednesday, 24 August 2005 23:04:14 UTC