RE: ACTION-977 - Edit glossary entry for "recognize" to start with a concise definition

Nice - I agree with all of this.

-Jan


(MR) JAN RICHARDS
PROJECT MANAGER
INCLUSIVE DESIGN RESEARCH CENTRE (IDRC)
OCAD UNIVERSITY

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________________________________
From: Greg Lowney [gcl-0039@access-research.org]
Sent: May-08-14 4:37 AM
To: WAI-UA list
Subject: ACTION-977 - Edit glossary entry for "recognize" to start with a concise definition

I initially intended to just do a minor editorial change on the definition of "recognized", but now I think it has a major flaw which might require splitting it into sub-entries for "recognized content" and "recognized actions". I also suggest changing the term to "recognizable".

The current definition is entirely about recognizing information in content, but when I listed all the phrases where the term is used in the document I found it's actually used in two ways:

  *   Referring to content, it is used with "content", "alternative content", "unrendered content", "unrendered alternative content", "text alternatives", "on-screen alternative content", "controls", "text", "enabled elements", "enabled input elements", "multi-column text blocks", "direct commands", "author-supplied shortcuts", "input methods", "time-based media content", and "messages", "structure types", and "user-interface controls".

  *   Referring to actions, it precedes "form submissions", "navigation", and "text entry actions".

For reference, the current glossary entry reads:

Authors encode information in many ways, including in markup languages, style sheet languages, scripting languages, and protocols. When the information is encoded in a manner that allows the user agent to process it with certainty, the user agent can "recognize" the information. For instance, HTML allows authors to specify a heading with the H1 element, so a user agent that implements HTML can recognize that content as a heading. If the author creates a heading using a visual effect alone (e.g. just by increasing the font size), then the author has encoded the heading in a manner that does not allow the user agent to recognize it as a heading. Some requirements of UAAG 2.0 depend on content roles, content relationships, timing relationships, and other information supplied by the author. These requirements only apply when the author has encoded that information in a manner that the user agent can recognize. See the section on conformance for more information about applicability. User agents will rely heavily on information that the author has encoded in a markup language or style sheet language. Behaviors, style, meaning encoded in a script, and markup in an unfamiliar XML namespace may not be recognized by the user agent as easily or at all.

Below is a first attempt to revise it to also cover the second sense. I did this by creating two sub-entries, labeling the existing definition "recognized content" (with only minor editorial changes), and adding a second sub-entry for "recognized actions". I also add a Note, which can be considered independently. I've marked the new or changed text in bold, which should be delimited in asterisks for those looking at the plain text version. Feel free to modify these or suggest changes.

In addition, consider whether "recognizable" might be a better, more accurate term than "recognized" throughout the document. As the Note below points out, "recognized" is somewhat misleading because even if a browser fails to recognize something it *should* recognize, that's not a valid excuse for ignoring the success criterion. For example, 1.1.1 would read "The user can choose to render any type of recognizable alternative content that is present for a content element."

Here is the first draft proposal:

Recognize: Information or events that can be identified unambiguously by user agents.

Recognized content: Information that is encoded within content in a way that can be unambiguously recognized by user agents. Authors encode information in many ways, including in markup languages, style sheet languages, scripting languages, and protocols. When the information is encoded in a manner that allows the user agent to process it with certainty, the user agent can "recognize" the information. For instance, HTML allows authors to specify a heading with the H1 element, so a user agent that implements HTML can recognize that content as a heading. If instead the author creates a heading using a visual effect alone (e.g. just by increasing the font size), then the author has encoded the paragraph in a manner that does not allow the user agent to recognize it as a heading. In those cases the heading is unrecognized and the user agent would not be required to treat it as a heading. Some requirements of UAAG 2.0 depend on content roles, content relationships, timing relationships, and other information supplied by the author. These requirements only apply when the author has encoded that information in a manner that the user agent can recognize. See the section on conformance for more information about applicability. User agents will rely heavily on information that the author has encoded in a markup language or style sheet language. Behaviors, style, and meaning encoded in a script, and markup in an unfamiliar XML namespace, may not be recognized by the user agent as easily or at all.

Note: Whether or not an aspect of the content is considered recognized depends solely on the content format and the way an author encodes the information. Because the H1 tag is part of the HTML standard, when it is used properly by the content author the heading would be considered recognized even if a particular user agent ignores the H1 tag.

Recognized actions: Actions or events that can be unambiguously identified by a user agent. This can include actions or events initiated by users, scripts, extensions, or other sources. For example, if the keyboard focus is on a web page when the user presses a key, the user agent can recognize the keystroke and can act upon it. If the keyboard focus is on an embedded media player when the user presses a key, the host user agent may or may not be able to detect the keystroke, depending on the embedding architecture. Similarly, when the user activates an INPUT element with type="submit", the user agent will recognize this as a form submission action and carry out the proper interchange with the server. However, if a page includes a custom control that looks like a button labeled "Submit" but whose actions are entirely handled by an author-provided script, the user agent would not be able to recognize the user action as equivalent to a form submission. Actions such as opening of new browser window would always be implemented by the user agent, so the action would be recognized regardless of whether it was initiated by the user clicking a button or by a script calling a browser function.

    Thanks,
    Greg