Re: Action Item: Investigate wording for possible third class agent for conformance section

Rich,
It is possible to discuss another category at the meeting wednesday and I
am sure it will be discussed.  But I would really like to have only two
right.  I was wondering how many other checkpoints besides the ones in
Guideline 6 "Observe system conventions and standard interfaces" would be
of concern for HPR if you were trying to comply with the dependent user
agent sub-grouping.
Thanks,
Jon



At 03:47 PM 8/30/99 -0500, schwer@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
>
>
>Jon,
>
>After considerable thought on this on really believe section 3.1(conformance)
>needs to define a third class of agent called a "Targetted Agent." Targetted
>agents like Home Page Reader and PWWebSpeak are user agents that are targetted
>to a specific disabilities group or groups. They are not designed to work with
>or provide access to features that an unrelated asssitive technology should
>need. In particular, the definition of "Native support" required:
>
>"for dependend user agents states that Native support does not preclude more
>extensive support for accessibility by dependent user agents, so user agents
>must still make information available through programming interfaces."
>
>This means that if a targetted agent renders a document visually it needs to
>support a DOM and expose all the API to another assistive technology for the
>purposes of enabling access by different user agent technologies or
disabilites
>groups not intended by the targetted agent. When doing our Home Page Reader
>Evaluation and when assessing future Home Page Reader product requirements we
>found numerous conformance checkpoints that were non-applicable for the
reasons
>stated.
>
>To change the wording in section 3.1 I would suggest the following:
>
>The terms "must", "should", and "may" (and related terms) are used in this
>document in accordance with RFC 2119 ([RFC2119]).
>
>To promote interoperability between graphical desktop user agents and
dependent
>user agents and between graphical desktop user agents and targetted agents
>conformance to this document is expressed in terms of these three types of
>software.
>
>Conformance for graphical desktop browsers
>
>In order to conform as a graphical desktop browser, the user agent must
satisfy
>all the checkpoints (for a chosen conformance level) that apply to graphical
>desktop browsers and do so natively.
>
>Even for those checkpoints that must be satisfied natively, graphical desktop
>browsers should make information available to other software through standard
>interfaces (e.g., specialized dependent user agents may provide a better
>solution to a problem than a graphical desktop browser).
>
>Conformance for dependent user agents
>In order to conform as a dependent user agent, the user agent must satisfy all
>the checkpoints (for a chosen conformance level) that apply to dependent user
>agents and do so natively.
>
>Conformance for targetted agents
>
>In order to conform as a targetted agent, the user must satisfy all the
>checkpoints (for a chosen conformance level) that apply to targetted agents.
>Targetted agents are graphical desktop browsers targetted to a specific
>disability.
>
>The difficulty here will be deciding what checkpoints apply to what 
>disabilties.
>Does such a list exist?
>
>Rich
>
>Rich Schwerdtfeger
>Lead Architect, IBM Special Needs Systems
>EMail/web: schwer@us.ibm.com http://www.austin.ibm.com/sns/rich.htm
>
>"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
>I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.", Frost
>

Received on Monday, 30 August 1999 18:00:39 UTC