Re: Issue 545: In Guideline 6, clarify "content state" rather than "content"

Ian,

Regarding the proposed wording to address state information I believe it is
important that we define the correct terminology as it crosssections
accessibility infrastructure terminology. Note: we may want to extend
content value to include text of a document element such as a text input
field.

I propose using the following definitions to the working group and then
expanding on Ian's proposed changes to incorporate these definitions:


Content state - Document content has a condition of being in a stage or
form during its use known as its "state." The state of document content is
ususally defined in discrete pre-defined values as should be known by
assistive technologies designed to support the document. Examples of
possible object states are:  has focus, selected, visible, is selecteable,
checked, focused, activated, pressed, expanded, collapsed, iconified,
editable, multi-line, resizable, vertical, horizontal, collapsible,
expandable, and enabled.

Content selection - A collection of document content often selected by the
user through some means.

Content value - An amount assigned to document content. Some document may
have an assigned value that may change during the course of its use. An
example of a the use of content value is the currently value of an HTML
selection object.


Rich Schwerdtfeger
Senior Technical Staff Member
IBM Accessibility Center
Research Division
EMail/web: schwer@us.ibm.com

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.",
Frost



                                                                                                         
                      "Ian B. Jacobs"                                                                    
                      <ij@w3.org>              To:       Richard Schwerdtfeger/Austin/IBM@IBMUS          
                      Sent by:                 cc:       Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org>, Ray Whitmer   
                      w3c-wai-ua-reques         <rayw@netscape.com>, w3c-wai-ua@w3.org,                  
                      t@w3.org                  w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org                                
                                               Subject:  Re: Issue 545: In Guideline 6, clarify "content 
                                                state" rather than  "content"                            
                      09/23/2002 03:43                                                                   
                      PM                                                                                 
                                                                                                         
                                                                                                         




Richard Schwerdtfeger wrote:
> Ian,
>
> You need to write a definition of "content state." Here is why: state
could
> mean the state of the entire document i.e. you could be falling down the
> mutation event path which you don't want to do since we do not require
the
> DOM 2 or 3 event specification.
>
> Also, the text in an input field is not always considered a change in
> state. It is often considered a change in content by AT developers.

Ah, but the DOM WG considers this a change in state, not a change
in the DOM tree.

Our intent has been to provide access (read + write) to changes
in form controls (or analogous things that can be changed through
the UI). Whether we call that 'content' or 'state' doesn't really
matter as long as the capability is there. However, if we call
it 'content' (as we currently do in the last call draft), that's
inconsistent with the DOM model. Hence the proposal to shift
to 'state'.

 > State
> in the AT community is often associated with the state of buttons. ...
See
> the AccessibleState definition in Java.


> I'd recommend you limit things to the state of form elements and be
> explicit. You can do this by writing a definition of what you mean by
> content state in the guidelines.

Could you start by proposing some text? We can discuss this
at Thursday's call.

Thanks Rich!

  - Ian

P.S. I'm in another meeting until Thursday...

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Tuesday, 24 September 2002 16:38:00 UTC