complete trouble reports (how much configuration info?)

At 09:50 AM 2002-05-24, Access Systems wrote:
>On Fri, 24 May 2002, Wendy Fraser wrote:
>
>> I may have jumped the gun a little here and not seen what your exact
>> requirements were.  Maybe we are both looking for different things.  
>> 
>> In the Creating Accessible Web Sites course we compare the site in both
>> a visual browser and Lynx to ensure you are receiving the same
>
>this is more a question than an answer,  I have heard but haven't checked
>that Lynx behaves differently and presents more or less information
>depending on where it is loaded...in other words a computer running on a
>purely text OS (MSDOS or Linux in term mode) vs a GUI computer OS
>running Lynx on top of a system like Windoz...

If the problem you are experiencing is a Lynx problem, the developers and superusers on the lynx-dev list will need to know both the version and OS you are using to help you diagnose and fix or work around the problem.  But for site problems, the OS should matter little, for a given version of the program.

You can get your version from the information page with the equals key and report the Lynx version you observed with, and that should be good enough for reporting problems with a site.  [But read on.]

If you report both your Lynx version and OS version it doesn't hurt.  But the priorities are pretty stable at:

1) what you did (with URL you were at) and what broke: what happened, why this is wrong
2) browser you were using, with version
3) other installation and configuration stuff

The first thing Wendy would do is simply turn to her copy of Lynx or other text browser and try to reproduce the problem; for which she needs a description of what you did leading up to the problem and what the actual problem was that ensued.  Trouble reports are more often inadequate in this regard than in configuration information, but some problems require the configuration information to determine the source of the problem.  Walk through the episode so someone else can try to reproduce the problem.  Jerry's report is excellent in this regard, but he is reporting on success, so that is easier.

Even better (in Lynx) is to turn tracing on with control-T, walk through the episode again, starting with going to the page where the problem occurs, through where the browsing breaks.  Explain in your own words why this was a problem, and attach or include the trace log file with your report.  This automatically captures the Lynx version and the URL you went to.  If the problem is any one of a number of _server_ problems, tracing the HTTP steps in this way will be the only way to know for sure.

Only if Wendy or the webmaster fails to reproduce the problem does the diagnosis delve into versions, hosts, and that level of detail.

Al

>Bob
>
>> information.  We test to see if the "alt" attributes in the images are
>> appropriate and convey the proper information.  If tables are used for
>> layout with spacer graphics, do the spacer graphics for the proper "alt"
>> attribute {alt=""}.  We do listen to hear how the page is spoken (for
>> example on the CBC site the link to "full story" has spaces between each
>> letter and is in uppercase, likely to be spoken F  U   L  L ...).  Is
>> the site in scalable text..  We check to ensure that if you had a
>> mobility problem could you activate the main and side navigation with
>> ease.  Can you make the clickable area larger?  Do the text links make
>> sense when taken out of context?  For example most news sites will have
>> a large number of links "Full Story" when hearing a list of the links
>> that are available on any page.
>> 
>> Does the site use forms?  Do they use radio buttons?  Can you activate
>> the search function?
>> 
>> I hope this helps clarify why I listed the sites in my previous email.
>> I personal feel that the news sites are missing a huge audience as their
>> web sites are not very accessible, and in most cases information is
>> missing (when viewing in Lynx).  I also realized the audience they are
>> excluding was never part of their target audience prior to the WWW.
>> 
>> I really enjoy this list and refer to many of you (generally, not my
>> name) in my courses concerning accessibility.  
>> 
>> Wendy Fraser
>> Instructor
>> Internet Institute
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On
>> Behalf Of Access Systems
>> Sent: Thursday, May 23, 2002 9:29 PM
>> To: Wendy Fraser
>> Cc: 'wai-ig list'
>> Subject: RE: not jaws, just inaccessible:Fw: Inaccessible Web sites
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, 22 May 2002, Wendy Fraser wrote:
>> 
>> visiting using Lynx running on a Linux box 
>> 
>> > Examples I use in my Creating Accessible Web Sites course are any news
>> 
>> > sites.  Some really good examples (although they are Canadian) are
>> > www.canada.com/ottawa,    Good
>> > www.cbc.ca,               Surely you jest....bad not impossible but
>> bad
>> > www.canada.com            Good
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>>    ASCII Ribbon Campaign                        accessBob
>> 
>>     NO HTML/PDF/RTF in e-mail                   accessys@smartnospam.net
>> 
>>     NO MSWord docs in e-mail                    Access Systems,
>> engineers       
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>> 
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>> 
>> 
>
>   ASCII Ribbon Campaign                        accessBob                       
>    NO HTML/PDF/RTF in e-mail                   accessys@smartnospam.net       
>    NO MSWord docs in e-mail                    Access Systems, engineers       
>    NO attachments in e-mail,  *LINUX powered*   access is a civil right 
>*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#
>THIS message and any attachments are CONFIDENTIAL and may be
>privileged.  They are intended ONLY for the individual or entity named
>above. If you are not the intended recipient, Please notify the sender as
>soon as possible. Please DO NOT READ, COPY, USE, or DISCLOSE this
>communication to others and DELETE it from your computer systems.  Thanks

Received on Friday, 24 May 2002 10:45:32 UTC