RE: next validator

As the "non-technical head" of CAST's Bobby initiative, I want to emphasize
the importance of the "Trojan horse" aspect of Bobby.  Many non-disability
oriented web developer support sites have links to Bobby because of the
browser and download tests.  My hope remains that many will continue to
discover disability access through the back door.  Our success has been
confirmed by the messages that we receive every day from users of Bobby -
often from folks who have never considered accessibility before discovering
Bobby.

Bobby is both a validator and an educational tool.  CAST is interested in
both and has representatives on the working groups associated with both.  I
should note that we are completing work on a new Bobby release (on-line and
application) that provides a choice for HTML 3.2 and traditional legacy
guidelines or HTML 4.0 and a subset of the April working draft of "WAI
Accessibility Guidelines: Page Authoring".  Advanced settings will allow
further refinement for browser compatibility.  When we complete this
release, I would be more than pleased to discuss a special purpose version
of Bobby that meets the needs of ER.

I will leave it to Josh to respond to your technical questions and
suggestions.  He is my validator hero too.

Chuck

***********************************
Chuck Hitchcock, Director
Universal Design Lab (UDL)and
Product Development,
CAST, Inc.,
39 Cross Street, Peabody, MA 01960
Voice 978 531-8555
TTY 978 531-3110
Fax 978 531-0192
<http://cast.org/>
<http://cast.org/bobby/>


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-rc-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-rc-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of William Loughborough
Sent: Thursday, June 18, 1998 9:23 AM
To: jkrieger@cast.org
Cc: w3c-wai-rc@w3.org
Subject: next validator


Inasmuch as you're my validator hero I thought I'd try to get you to
join in the fun at http://www.w3.org/WAI/RC/ which is the old name
(Rating & Certification) for what is now called ER (evaluation &
repair).  We need all the help we can get.

In particular in making my "test" website that intends to demonstrate
the usefulness of style sheets: http://w3.gorge.net/love25/webspin.htm
(it links to two other versions of the same material) I used images as
links and two of them are a part of the ER effort - one for HTML
validation via validator.w3.org and the other Bobby - and learned a bit
about such thingies.

1) Having two "validators" is cumbersome.  They also create a problem:
if I validate the HTML, then use Bobby to get approval and use the URI
from it as the link to prove the site is still accessible, the HTML no
longer validates because the address of the Bobby test contains
something ("&browser" and "&output") that chokes it (but shouldn't since
it's an address inside quotation marks and shouldn't be subject to the
same constraints as HTML code).

2) Bobby should have a stripped-down version for this sort of use.
There is no need for displaying the web page yet again since one was
just looking at it; the loadtime section is superfluous.  Just the
facts, ma'am.  Is it still OK to use the logo?  If not why?

We need a good tool for the "E" part, the "R" part still needs a lot of
planning: do you rewrite the HTML, even to switching to CSS (I think
there's a program that does this) and ship it back or do you just make
the general guideline type suggestions.  The former is usually
preferable especially since the code is there for the author to tweak
and learn from.  The latter assumes that the guidelines are crystal
clear which is clearly not so as proven by your tables inquiry.

Come on, Josh!
--
Love.
            ACCESSIBILITY IS RIGHT - NOT PRIVILEGE
http://dicomp.pair.com

Received on Thursday, 18 June 1998 10:11:13 UTC