Proposal for conformance categories

I think that the labels we use for the conformance categories need to be
clear and much our problem I thnk center on not having clear labels with
the conformance issue.  The current labels ("inter-operable and
non-interoperable) in Ian's proposal do not mean anything to anybody
outside our working group and therefore people are worried that they will
be miss used (I agree with that concenr).  The current categoies used in
our document are not also not entirely clear (Desktop Graphical User Agent
and Dependent User Agent).  The conformance categories should be clear to
our intended audiences.  I propose that we use terminology similar to:

Category 1: Desktop Graphical User Agent
Category 2: Non-Graphical Assistive Technology User Agent

I think these categories are clear in their meaning and who is intended to
conform to them.  I think the main difference between the two is the issue
of using accessibility APIs and exporting internal document representations
to assistive technologies.  DGUA need to do this.  The other issue on the
bubble between the two is device indepdendence.  It is clear that we want
it for DGUA. 

These are the two categories of user agents we know about right now and
want to provide solutions.

In general the checkpints should ask people to do whta ever they do in an
accessible way.  If I do graphics, keyboard and mouse: I should do it in an
accessible way.  If I do speech and keyboard, I do it in an acessible way.

I think claiming conformance is an issue WAI as a whole needs to deal with
and I will bring it up to Judy Brewer as a issue for the coordination group.

Jon



Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820

Voice: 217-244-5870
Fax: 217-333-0248
E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu
WWW:	http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
		http://www.w3.org/wai/ua
		http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess

Received on Wednesday, 29 September 1999 10:20:31 UTC