- From: Michael Cooper <michaelc@watchfire.com>
- Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 15:30:57 -0500
- To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
What I hear Becky saying is that the intent of this success criterion falls wholly - not just partially - in the user agent's responsibility. Some of the other comments in the wiki seem to be asking that too, once I see things through Becky's lens. I guess I would say that this is a functional requirement, that we would hope user agents would handle, meaning no author responsibility, but we would expect authors to do something in case of any UA problem. In WCAG 1.0 days there were known problems in this area, which is why it occurred to us to create this SC. If there are no longer such problems, so we can't think of any necessary authoring techniques, then we might question its value. We could do a couple things: * Assume present and future technologies will automatically fulfill the intent of this, and / or that other specifications, such as UAAG, will take on the requirement, and remove the SC. * Keep the SC because we think it's important, mainly as a beacon for technology developers, even though there are no authoring techniques for it. * Come up with specific authoring techniques, or ways to fail, that demonstrate the need to keep this SC. I guess that was my job on taking an action item for this and I haven't yet succeeded to everybody's satisfaction. With those three possible approaches on the table, does anyone have a preference for which way we go, or data to support choosing one over the other? It seems to me the weight of opinion is leaning towards the first one unless someone makes a strong argument for one of the others. Michael -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com Sent: October 31, 2005 3:06 PM To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org Subject: RE: Techniques for GL 4.2 L1 SC6 Regarding the techniques for GL 4.2 L1 SC6 I'm not sure what "Providing an event whenever a change to structure, selection, focus, attributes, values, state, or relationships occur. " means? As a JavaScript programmer I generally respond to system events rather than providing them. There is a DOM api, dispatchEvent(someEvent) which can be sent to a particular node. Do other technologies such has Flash have the concept of providing an event? I can see using DHTML Accessibility to satisfy some of this success criterion but even then, I'm not sure how to deal with focus? I can programmatically set focus to an object by calling object.focus(). But, I have to first be using an object that can accept focus - either a form element or link or I have set the tabindex value on the object. Is calling focus on an object considered programmatically determined since it is in the script? The user agent has to do something with that method call (usually by generating a focus event). As the programmer, I am relying on the user agent to generate the focus event for that object and the AT to acknowledge that focus. Is a success criteria about that really necessary? Maybe not for HTML but perhaps for other technologies? I have the same question about changing values? In HTMLand JavaScript I can programmatically change the value of an input type=text field. If I then set focus to the field, the AT should pick it up. I'm not sure there are really any specific techniques for this. If the call to inputObject.focus() is in the JavaScript code then isn't it automatically programmatically determined? Regarding the script technique: Writing new content directly to the DOM - while this is the preferred way to add new content, there is no guarantee that the AT's will pick it up. For example, if you add the new information at the top of the page and then do not set focus to it, the AT user may never know the information has been added. But, if focus is set the change in focus may be unexpected and you could be violating GL 3.2 L1 SC1 or L3 SC2. Also, using document.write is listed as a common failure. While my advice is to create objects via the DOM, when done right, document.write can be identified by AT. I generally don't recommend document.write because it is not useable in XHTML and thus code will have to eventually be rewritten if migrating from HTML to XHTML. So, perhaps it can stay as a common failure but the reasons need to be identified. I'm not at all sure I see the need for this success criterion. Is the focus really more on future technologies? It still seems like we are specifying requirements on the user agent rather than the web content. my two cents, -becky Becky Gibson Web Accessibility Architect IBM Emerging Internet Technologies 5 Technology Park Drive Westford, MA 01886 Voice: 978 399-6101; t/l 333-6101 Email: gibsonb@us.ibm.com
Received on Monday, 31 October 2005 20:31:04 UTC