RE: (Action) Issue 394: Proposed revision to checkpoint 2.1

See comments below.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Jacobs [mailto:ij@w3.org]
> Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 7:46 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
> Subject: (Action) Issue 394: Proposed revision to checkpoint 2.1
> 
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Per my action item from the 30 November 2000 teleconference [1],
> please consider this proposed change to checkpoint 2.1 to resolve
> issue 394 [2]. The reviewer wrote:
> 
>   "I feel the description of 2.1 is too vague on exactly what portions
>   of the content are satisfied by providing a document source
>   view. You say it's good enough for some things, but not everything,
>   and give a few examples but no clear guidance on how to extrapolate
>   to other cases."
> 
> From the 29 Dec 2000 draft:
> 
> <OLD 2.1>
> 2.1 Make all content available through the user interface. [P1]
> 
>   Note: Users must have access to the entire document object through
>   the user interface, including recognized equivalents, attributes,
>   style sheets, etc. This checkpoint does not require that all content
>   be available in every viewport. A document source view is an
>   important part of a solution for providing access to content, but is
>   not a sufficient solution on its own for all content. See guideline
>   5 for more information about programmatic access to content.
> </OLD 2.1>
> 
> Comments and observations:
> 
> 1) If a document source view alone is not a sufficient solution, then
> Notepad cannot conform to UAAG 1.0. (In any case, whether Notepad can
> conform at P2 depends on whether plain text meets the requirements of
> checkpoint 6.2.). I will assume for the moment that we don't want a
> user agent that consists only of a source view to conform.
> 
> 2) I think that 2.1 needs to state clearly that:
> 
>   a) Most content will be used as rendered according to specification.
>      This means that in general, users will not read CSS style sheets
>      or scripts, but will experience their effects after processing.
> 
>   b) 2.1 also requires a source view for viewing unprocessed content,
>      because there are cases where that is the only way for the user
>      to get information.
> 
> 3) It is possible to claim conformance for a user agent that doesn't
> feature a source view in conjunction with Notepad. [I don't mean to
> pick on Notepad <grin> - I mean any source-viewing tool here.] There
> is no requirement in UAAG 1.0 that the two pieces of software must be
> "integrated" to satisfy the requirements of the document.
> 
> So, I propose making the document source view requirement more
> explicit in the checkpoint:
> 
> <NEW 2.1>
> 2.1 Make all content available through the user interface. 
> Offer a document source view in addition to other views. [P1]
> 
>   Note: The user must have access to the entire document object
>   (including recognized equivalents, attributes, style sheets, etc.)
>   through the user interface. In most cases, the user views content
>   (markup, style sheets, scripts, etc.) after it has been processed.
>   A source view is required so that, as a last resort, the user may
>   consult the source when content is not accessible through any
>   other views. A document source view alone does not satisfy this
>   checkpoint. This checkpoint does not require that all content be
>   available in every viewport. See guideline 5 for more information
>   about programmatic access to content.  
> </NEW 2.1>
> 
EH:

The term "recognized" seems out of place above, perhaps due to a problem
with the definition of "recognize". It seems to me that presenting some
default view of content is part of what it means to "handle" information and
is therefore part of what it means to "recognize" information.

Also it is not clear whether the term "recognized" above is intended to
mean: "(including recognized equivalents, recognized attributes, recognized
style sheets, etc.)". Regardless of how this issue is clarified, one
wonders, why is access limited only to "recognized" information.... Don't we
want similar access to things that are _not_ recognized?

What seems to be missing from checkpoint 2.1 and from recognize is this
notion of distingishing between data intended for human consumption and data
that is not.

Maybe the way you are handling all this is as good as we can do at this
time...

I keep wondering if the definition of recognize needs to be changed to
indicated that a user agent "recognizes information when it can (1) handle
it according to specification and (b) render it in a document source view".
This would remove from checkpoint 2.1 the burden of referring to document
source view at all in checkpoint 2.1....

It may be that we cannot resolve this one nicely until we tie down the
equivalency issue... As you may recall, in my latest proposals regarding
equivalency, I leaned on the definition of 'recognition' (e.g., by obliging
the user agent to recognize content (alternatives) as equivalents).

29 Dec version:

Recognize 
A user agent is said to recognize a piece of information when the user agent
developer has designed it to handle that information. A user agent
recognizes those features of markup or style languages that it implements
and the behavior of the user interface controls that it provides. User
agents may not understand everything the author has encoded in content, such
as the semantics of XML elements unknown to the user agent, whether the link
text and link title accurately describe the linked resource, whether a
sentence (that has not been specially marked up) is a text equivalent for an
image, or whether a script is calculating a factorial. A user agent does not
recognize everything that a script does, even though it may implement the
scripting language. However, it will recognize some information encoded in
scripts, such as code to open a viewport or retrieve a resource from the
Web. The Techniques document [UAAG10-TECHS] lists some markup known to
affect accessibility that should be recognized by user agents. 

EH:

>  - Ian
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2000OctDec/0364
> [2] http://server.rehab.uiuc.edu/ua-issues/issues-linear-lc2.html#394
> [3] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-20001229/
> 
> -- 
> Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
> Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
> Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783
>

Received on Monday, 8 January 2001 10:40:49 UTC