Re: Ability taxonomy

First, let me agree wholeheartedly with Gregg that the
classification we should use is functional.  This doesn't mean we
don't need to develop something for the purposes of this group.

I probably threw people off with the term "taxonomy."  By this I
just mean a way to name functional ability clusters.  For the
project we need a common understanding of some such
ability-description framework.  Another name for what we need is
"an index of functional user abilities, as simple as we can make
it while retaining all differences that matter."

While I alluded to an earlier suggestion of disability indicators
to go forward in messages, I was alluding to that for motivation
and I think that there is a more fundamental need for common
knowledge across the working group.  We need to know what user
differences matter before we start writing an HTTP message data
dictionary, or any of our other task outputs.

Probably there are people on the team such as Gregg and Javier
that already know more than enough about this.  We need them to
teach us, people like Paul to check it out, and get it into the
project bookshelf where people that join the process later can
read up without tying up meeting time.

That is my idea of the need.

I agree with Daniel's request that we move this thread to the
w3c-wai-ig list.  Do people understand why he said that?  What do
other think?  If you want to stay together "in plenary session"
until we all understand the division of responsibilities between
the two lists better, please speak up.

Warning: Historical divisions into "content guidelines
vs. browser guidelines" will probably not suffice for the future.
Some future visions allow for control widgets in the content that
comes from the server.  I think that we really need to back off
to defining requirements on the browse dialog between user and
content that can later be allocated to tool and protocol by the
developers.  But this process of "backing off" ususally takes
time and work.  If this is not clear to people, we need to talk
about it.

--
Al Gilman

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 1997 08:57:42 UTC