Re: Proposal checkpiont 2.7: Solution for repair text should not be minimal requirement

Ian,
Could you add to the list of options in the checkpoint the techniques you 
outlined.

<IAN PROPOSED>
...
The user agent may satisfy this checkpoint by basing the repair text on any of
   the following available sources of information: URI reference, content 
type, or element type.
</IAN PROPOSED>


<NEW>
...
The user agent may satisfy this checkpoint by basing the repair text on any of
   the following available sources of information: URI reference, content 
type, element type or the content of the URI.
<NEW>

Jon

At 10:43 AM 3/15/2001 -0500, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>Hello,
>
>In the 9 March draft of the UAAG 1.0 [1], checkpoint 2.7
>reads:
>
>    2.7 Allow configuration to generate repair text when
>        the user agent recognizes that the author has failed
>        to provide conditional content that was required by
>        the format specification. If the missing conditional
>        content is included by URI reference, base the repair
>        text on the URI reference and content type.
>        Otherwise, base the repair text on element type
>        information.
>
>I don't think that the solution for generating repair
>text should be a minimal requirement to satisfy the checkpoint,
>but rather one way to satisfy the checkpoint. As Charles
>argued recently [2] on another topic, I think that the
>techniques listed in the checkpoint may be sufficient,
>but not necessary approaches to satisfying the checkpoint.
>I think that a user agent can do much better than URI reference
>and mime type, and should not be prevented from doing do
>(e.g., the UA might fetch the title of the resource designated
>by the URI).
>
>Therefore I propose rewording the checkpoint as follows:
>
>  <NEW 2.7>
>    Allow configuration to generate repair text when
>    the user agent recognizes that the author has failed
>    to provide conditional content that was required by
>    the format specification. The user agent may satisfy
>    this checkpoint by basing the repair text on any of
>    the following available sources of information: URI
>    reference, content type, or element type.
>       Note: Some markup languages (such as HTML 4 [HTML4] and
>       SMIL 1.0 [SMIL] require the author to provide conditional
>       content for some elements (e.g., the "alt" attribute on
>       the IMG element).
>  </NEW 2.7>
>
>For the Techniques:
>
>     * Allow configuration so that instead of generating
>       repair text from a URI reference, the user agent
>       retrieves the resource at that URI and extracts
>       meaningful text (e.g., a title) from the resource
>       as the basis of repair text. [It would even be
>       possible to build a database of useful repair text
>       to be consulted whenever a resource included by
>       URI lacked required conditional content.]
>
>Comments:
>
>  a) I also think that any of the three pieces (URI
>     reference, content type, element type) should suffice
>     (hence or rather than and).
>
>  b) In general, content type is provided by HTTP headers,
>     not in markup, and I would rather not require the UA
>     to do a HEAD or GET call to find out the content type
>     of a Web resource.
>
>  c) I realize that this may make it harder to verify that
>     the user agent has satisfied the intention of the
>     checkpoint. I hesitate to say that the repair text
>     should meet WCAG expectations, because this is generated
>     text and there is no guarantee that it will be useful.
>     I don't think it's worth saying "the repair text needs
>     to be useful to the user," though clearly that's the
>     intention.
>
>  d) I propose deleting the last sentence of the Note:
>
>     "When the author does not provide this required content,
>      the user agent is required by this document to generate
>      repair text."
>
>  - Ian
>
>[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-20010309/
>[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/2001JanMar/0345.html
>--
>Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
>Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
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
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Monday, 19 March 2001 13:02:22 UTC