Re: Minutes

Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
> 
> The summary conclusion in the minutes includes the statement that 3.1.1 is
> too vague to be a technique.
> 
> I do not recall this ever being decided by the group.

I very much agree with Charles here. 

 - Ian

> I think that at one
> point it may have been suggested that this was the case by an individual,
> and it was suggested to me in private converstaion by an individual.
 
> I do not regard the technique (following the proposed modification which
> changes the requirement from redundant meansof control to
> device-independent means of control) as even slightly vague. It can be
> checked explicitly by the following test:
> 
> For each function provided by the User Agent (changing font, activating a
> link, selecting text, changing rate of speech, decreasing tolerance of
> key-bounce, determining how often headers are repeated in linearised
> tables, etc, as applicable to the User Agent in Question) is it possible
> for the control to be activated in a device independent manner? If there
> is an API, or a control feature for which the OS always provides
> alternative access, the answer is yes. If there is a hardware-specific
> mechanism, for which there is no API, the answer is no.
> 
> It is a wide-reaching guideline, which is very important to ensure
> accessibility of a User Agent. It probably should be modified to take
> account of whether the User Agent makes an API available or whether it is
> constrained to certain hardware. But then, a touch screen information
> kiosk, with no voice output or tactile feedback, is not accessible. Which
> is not the same thing as saying that it cannot serve a need, merely that
> in nearly all circumstances it is not a total solution to that need.
> 
> --Charles McCathieNevile -  mailto:charles@w3.org
> phone:(temporary) +1 (617) 258 8143  http://purl.oclc.org/net/charles
> 
> W3C Web Accessibility Initiative -  http://www.w3.org/WAI
> 545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, USA

-- 
Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) 
Tel/Fax: (212) 684-1814 
http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs

Received on Wednesday, 16 December 1998 01:20:30 UTC