- From: Jukka Korpela <jukka.korpela@tieke.fi>
- Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 11:32:50 +0200
- To: "'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org'" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
The importance of query systems like search engines and database queries is well known. Their use is often highly interactive, requiring the user to work with largish amounts of data in the query results. This makes their accessibility very important. Yet, such systems often return results in a format which is difficult to use, especially to the blind. With the help of several people, I've composed a proposal on principles that could be recommended to query system implementors and maintainers: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/forms/qdfa.html It suggests the "minimal recommendation" to include a link to the start of query results proper into the beginning of a results page. This should be very easy to implement and would help quite a lot. Then it proposes some principles on the general structure of result pages (mainly to be considered when designing new systems, of course) as well as the use of headings and accesskeys. I wonder if it would be possible to discuss the proposal here, and maybe, if a consensus can be found, try to get some "W3C stamp" on it. I'm pretty sure that organizations like Google and AltaVista would take a simple proposal from the W3C seriously, especially if there's something in it that can be implemented very simply. -- Jukka Korpela TIEKE Tietoyhteiskunnan kehittämiskeskus ry Finnish Information Society Development Centre Salomonkatu 17 A, 10th floor, FIN - 00100 HELSINKI, FINLAND Phone: +358 9 4763 0397 Fax: +358 9 4763 0399 http://www.tieke.fi jukka.korpela@tieke.fi
Received on Monday, 4 March 2002 04:24:47 UTC