last call comments on User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

Dear Working Group,

Here are some comments on issues not related to internationalization
that I found when reading your User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

They are ordered more or less from high-level to low-level.



- The range of browsers available currently is large, and is getting
  larger. The guidelines are largely written for general-purpose graphical
  desktop browsers, but this term only appears once 'en passant'.
  It should be very clearly said at the beginning that this is the
  core target, and how the guidelines apply to other cases.
  The intent of the guidelines was probably more general, but
  it is extremely difficult to be really general, and admitting
  that clearly early on may make it much easier for people to understand
  how to apply the guidelines in each case, and may significantly
  reduce dangerous and costly misunderstandings.

- The text on 'applicable checkpoints' is crucial to understand
  how to apply the guidelines in various cases. It should be
  moved to section 1 to make sure it gets read early on, and
  to show that it is part of the definition of the guidelines.


- Several guidelines are virtually identical or very close to
  general UI guidelines. This observation should be made early
  on.

  Some things seem so general that I wonder why the turn up
  in Accessibility Guidelines. For example, should 'general'
  users not be informed when following a link implies a fee?
  That should depend on the depth of the pocket of the user,
  not on accessibility issues, it seems.
  

- The document contains a lot about deprecated technology,
  e.g. frames. There should be a comment saying that mentioning
  something does not necessarily mean it's a good feature for
  accessibility (see xxx guidelines), but that things are
  mentionned here nevertheless if they are sufficiently
  popular to justify support.

- Guideline 9.2: I don't get this. Do you want to say tha
  it is in the currently selected viewport, i.e. that the
  viewport may have to be changed? Or that the point of
  regard has to be changed?

- 10.1/10.2: I personally feel that showing author-set
  configurations is at least as important as user-set;
  many (not all) users may be able to remember to their
  own settings, while nobody will know author settings.

- 10.3: Single-stroke/single-key: Does this include modifiers
  or not? There are in general not enough keys to have one
  (unmodified) for each function.

  What is a 'self-voicing' browser.

- 10.7: Frequently requested commands: Are these new commands
  that are requested from the software manufacturer? If not,
  maybe better 'frequently used commands'.




- Please separate out each Definition to make it accessible in
  the printed version (or e.g. put a pointer from 'Point of Regards',
  in its correct alphabetical position, to the entry where it's
  discussed).

- Please rewrite the texts in the 'definition' section to read
  more like definitions of terms, or change the title, e.g. to
  Glossary, or background explanations.

- On Netscape 4.0, the boxed Guideline titles disappeared when
  printed.

Section 1.1: It will also will

Priority 1 mentions users with disabilities, the other
priorities don't. Is this on purpose?

Double-A and Triple-A should also provide the original
spelling (AA and AAA), to make sure users understand what
is referred to.

Conformance, Form 1: A list of checkpoints that have been
satisfied and which are considered not applicable.
Satisfying the checkpoints that are not applicable sounds
really strange.

Form 2: Link the icon to the ... W3C explanation: It is
probably a good idea to also provide a link to the list
of things satisfied/not applicable.

2.2: Closed closed captions

Guideline 4: in including -> including

4.17: No stylesheets: Does this mean that the default
stylesheet applies, or what?

Guideline 7: through rendered in -> through rendering in?
   Refer also to guideline 10..: double period, there are
   more of these, but easy to find.

Guideline 8: will assist the user understand ->
             will assist the user to understand

        output device-independent: weird grouping/use of space and hyphen
        There are more of these, e.g. user agent-initiated

11.1: but one must be accessible -> but at least one must be...




Sorry, I have a few more points, mostly minor, but I have
to leave now. Will send them tomorrow.


Regards,   Martin.



#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, World Wide Web Consortium
#-#-#  mailto:duerst@w3.org   http://www.w3.org

Received on Monday, 6 December 1999 05:07:56 UTC