- From: Ian Jacobs <ij@w3.org>
- Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 16:59:47 -0400
- To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
Hello, Checkpoint 8.7 in the 7 July 2000 UA Guidelines [1] reads: 8.7 Allow the user to configure and control which link information required by checkpoint 8.6 to present. [Priority 3] This checkpoint (which has always been vague) made more sense when the amount of information the user might receive to help him or her decide whether to follow a link was potentially large. However, we have succeeded in making 8.6 very specific so that so that it now requires only 7 pieces of information: 8.6 To help the user decide whether to follow a link, make available to the user the following information: link content, link title, whether the link is internal, whether the link has been followed, whether following it may involve a fee, and information about the type, size, and natural language of the linked resource. [Priority 3] Note: User agents are not required to retrieve the resource designated by a link as part of computing information about the link. PROPOSAL 1: In light of the new scope of checkpoint 8.6, I propose that we DELETE checkpoint 8.7. The difference between seven pieces of information and three, for example, is not very significant. I believe that configuration in this case will no longer be helpful and may complicate the user interface. PROPOSAL 2: I think we should make the following changes to checkpoint 8.6: a) Delete resource size requirement. This information may be provided by an an HTTP Content-Length entity-header field (HTTP 1.1 [2], section 14.13). This means that the UA must sent an HTTP request to the server, and I understood our Note after the checkpoint to mean that a UA would not have to send such requests. b) Clarify the definition of "followed link". For instance: b.i) A link may be considered followed (i.e., a resource has already been visited) for a finite period. The user should be able to configure this period. I don't think configuration of this period should be a UA requirement. b.ii) The UA establishes the scope for "visited". Thus, a user may tell the UA to consider links not visited even if the user has in fact visited them (i.e., "pretend as though I've never followed any links"). c) Clarify that in some cases, information may be hints provided by the author. For instance, content type and content language may be specified in HTML by certain attributes (e.g., "type" and "hreflang") but these are just hints to the UA. The definitive information comes from the HTTP transaction. Since I believe our goal was to make author-specified information available to the user, the UA should only be required to make available the hints, not the actual content type or language. -Ian [1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-20000707/ [2] ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2616.txt -- Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs Tel: +1 831 457-2842 Cell: +1 917 450-8783
Received on Monday, 17 July 2000 16:59:47 UTC