RE: Technique or Checkpoint

I would argue that it is almost a checkpoint.  Checkpoints should be in the
approximate form of "provide this functionality."  It should be obvious from
the checkpoint what abilities the checkpoint provides.  Hence, this isn't
quite there yet.  It is an arbitrary statement that you should "do this,"
without any explanation of why or to what extent.  It also doesn't define
what a "professionally written" description is: what profession?  How
detailed should the description be?

The statement might be rephrased along the lines of: Provide a text-based
means for the end user to determine the content of multimedia files (e.g.
clip art).

This phrasing would state the intent of the checkpoint, and be based on
functionality.  The technique associated with this checkpoint might be
something like "Provide grammatically correct and descriptively accurate
text documents and/or meaningful filenames that describe multimedia files.

Now, on the other hand, is this the responsibility of the user agent?  Do
user *agents*  include clip art and other multimedia files, or do they just
render them? It seems pointless to require an agent to generate a
description of files that come from elsewhere.

Denis Anson, MS, OTR
Assistant Professor
Computer Access Specialist
College Misericordia
301 Lake Street
Dallas, PA 18612

RESNA
The International Organization of Assistive Technology Professionals

Member since 1989



-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Charles McCathieNevile
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 1999 4:47 PM
To: Kynn Bartlett
Cc: WAI AU Guidelines; WAI UA group
Subject: Re: Technique or Checkpoint


Actually, it sounds like a checkpoint to me - a thing which Authoring
Tools "should" do to significantly increase the accessibility of the end
product. It is certainly not a priority 1. Techniques for this include
supporting the use of standards which allow information to be encoded with
it (such as GIF), as well as asking User Agent Guidelines to consider
providing access to that information.

Charles McCN

On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, Kynn Bartlett wrote:

  At 03:52 p.m. 02/11/99 -0500, Jutta Treviranus wrote:
  >Should the point about "Including professionally written descriptions for
  >all multimedia files (e.g., clip art) packaged with the software"
  >be a checkpoint and therefore something that must or should be done or
  >should it be a technique and therefore a suggested way of fulfilling the
  >guideline 2.6?

  This sounds like a technique to me.

  The principle is:

      "Make it easy for users to supply alternative text."

  The technique is:

      "...by including default descriptions for things you give them."

  Anyone have suggested working for the checkpoint, though?

  --
  Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                   http://www.kynn.com/
  Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet      http://www.idyllmtn.com/
  Six Principles of Accessible Web Design:         http://www.kynn.com/+six
  Spring 1999 Virtual Dog Show!                     http://www.dogshow.com/
  Enroll now for my web accessibility course    http://www.kynn.com/+access


--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://purl.oclc.org/net/charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Friday, 12 February 1999 09:07:45 UTC