Some Thoughts on Our Guidelines

Hello,

I was proof reading the editor's draft and had some comments that are really beyond the scope of proofreading the current draft so wanted to share them here.  I'm receptive to feedback as to the best way to discuss these (survey or what).

When you get to the heart  of the document, our first guideline is:

Guideline 1.1 Ensure that Web-based functionality is accessible.


I think this needs to be something other than 1.1.  This is important but not what most would probably think of as far as the first thing we should be introducing when it comes to specific accessibility guidelines.

Looking at some of the speech characteristics in these guidelines, I think levels need to be adjusted a bit.  Again this is just my thought and I'm open to feedback.



3.8.3 Speech Characteristics: The user can set all of the following synthesized speech characteristics, overriding<http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2009/UAAG20-20090120-WD/#def-override> any values specified by the author (Level AA):
*         (a) pitch ("pitch" refers to the average frequency of the speaking voice),
*         (b) pitch range ("pitch range" specifies a variation in average frequency), and
*         (c) speech stress. ("speech stress" refers to the height of "local peaks" in the intonation contour of the voice).

KF: Are all of these really level AA?  Stress for sure seems like a level AAA.



3.8.4 Speech Features: The following speech features are provided (Level AA):
*         (a) user-defined extensions to the synthesized speech dictionary,
*         (b) "spell-out", where text is spelled one character at a time, or according to language-dependent pronunciation rules,
KF: Strikes me as level AA.
*         (c) at least two ways of speaking numerals: one where numerals are spoken as individual digits, and one where full numbers are spoken, and
*         (d) at least two ways of speaking punctuation: one where punctuation is spoken literally, and one where punctuation is rendered as natural pauses.


3.10.11 Same UI: The user has the option<http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2009/UAAG20-20090120-WD/#def-configure> of having all "top-level" viewports follow the same user interface configuration as the current or spawning viewport, including the same "chrome". (Level AA)
KF: I think we were moving away from use of the term chrome?


3.12.2 Outline View: An "outline" view of rendered content<http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/2009/UAAG20-20090120-WD/#def-rendered-content> is provided, composed of labels for important structural elements (e.g., heading text, table titles, form titles, and other labels that are part of the content). Note: What constitutes a label is defined by each markup language specification. For example, in HTML, a heading (H1-H6) is a label for the section that follows it, a CAPTION is a label for a table, and the title attribute is a label for its element. (Level AA)
KF: We should probably include the html label tag in our html examples.

Thanks,

Kelly