rough draft intro to guidelines

Comments Please

The General Principles should be Number 1 or a preamble rather than 2 in
hierarchy of the guidelines to stress their importance and seminal basis for
the guidelines that follow them.
As General Principles, it was decided that they should be general-we
attempted to remove references to specific techniques or guidelines that are
covered in-depth in the guidelines.

General principles of accessible design

The guidelines in this document have been organized around the following
general principles of accessible user agent (browser) design:

1. UA has an Accessible User Interface
1.1 The UA provides the same means of use (is accessible and usable) for all
users: identical whenever possible; equivalent when not.
1.2 The UA design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and
abilities such as: redundancy of controls, menu and keyboard equivalents, no
mouse only controls.
1.3 Controls are arranged consistent with their importance.
1.4 Provides effective prompting and feedback during and after task
completion.
1.5 Allows the user to customize or configure the UA controls to meet their
needs.
1.6 UA interface is easy to understand, regardless of the user's experience,
knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.
1.7 Uses different modes (pictorial or verbal) for redundant presentation of
controls.
1.8 Differentiates control elements in ways that can be described (i.e.,
make it easy to give instructions or directions).
1.9 Provides compatibility with a variety of techniques or "third-party
assistive technology" devices.

2. The UA renders information in an accessible form:
2.1 UA provides multiple user customizable modes of output (information
rendering) to meet their needs.
2.2 Provides access to and selection of all alternate representations of
information within a web page.
2.3 Allow users to override author/UA presentation modes.
2.4 Allow redundant (multiple) methods of document navigation. At a minimum,
provide navigation through keyboard at all times.
2.5 Provide web page orientation information (overview-# of links, # of
images, etc.) so the user can quickly grasp content and context.(this one
may be too specific, can't find the "general way" to say it.)

Kitch and Jim

Received on Wednesday, 16 September 1998 11:58:44 UTC