Preliminary AGI Results: What They Thought

As part of the second questionnaire in the HTML Writers Guild's
Accessibility Guidelines Implementation project, the 
participants were asked to give their thoughts on specific
questions regarding the W3C's WAI guidelines for page authors
dated April 14, 1998.

The results included:

Overall Opinion:
  90% of the participants liked the guidelines document
  10% of the participants did not

Size of Document:
  74% felt the length was appropriate
  15% felt it was too short
  10% felt it was too long

Complexity:
  69% were satisfied with the complexity
  21% felt it was too technical
  10% felt it was not technical enough

Emphasis on HTML 4.0:
  56% felt the emphasis on HTML 4.0 was appropriate
  38% stated that HTML 4.0 was emphasized too much
   2% had no opinion

Emphasis on Stylesheets/CSS:
  54% felt there was _too much_ emphasis on the use of styles
  36% stated the emphasis was appropriate
  10% stated no opinion

Recommended vs. Required:
  97% understood the difference between recommended and required
   3% did not understand this difference
  92% felt the distinction is important
   5% did not feel it was an important distinction
   3% offered no opinion on the importance of the distinction

Interim vs. New:
  51% did _not_ understand the difference between Interim and New
  49% did understand the difference
  49% felt the distinction important
  25% did not feel the distinction important
  25% did not offer an opinion on the importance of the distinction

Effects of Reading the Guidelines:
  89% stated that they have new insight into accessible web design
      after reading the guidelines
   8% stated they did not
   3% did not know

These results can be used to form a general impression of how a
typical web designer reads and understands the WAI guidelines
for page authoring.  In particular, attention should be drawn
to the fact that most felt the emphasis on stylesheet usage to
be inappropriate, and the distinction between "Interim" and
"New" suggestions was not easily understood.

More complete results from the AGI project will be released as
analysis continues.  The AGI homepage is at:

http://www.hwg.org/opcenter/projects/agi/



--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@idyllmtn.com>      http://www.idyllmtn.com/~kynn/
  Owner, Idyll Mountain Internet       http://www.idyllmtn.com/
  Board member, HTML Writers Guild     http://www.hwg.org/
  Virtual Dog Show Co-Coordinator      http://www.dogshow.com/
  MLists Mailing List Service          http://www.mlists.com/

Received on Saturday, 1 August 1998 21:05:33 UTC