Comments on How to Report Inaccessible websites

Greetings, EOWG Editors:

On July 3, Andrew posted a message to the EOWG and WAI-Age lists 
regarding this document, How to Report Inaccessible websites, at:
  http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/responding/

As I mentioned on Friday, July 10 at the end of the EOWG conference 
call, I have several editing-related comments.  I am reviewing the 
document as of July 16.

I have 21 items for consideration; some are discretionary, but some I 
believe are necessary, I'm afraid. I have marked them accordingly.

Note that while I've framed some points in the form of questions, I 
am not particularly sugesting that we engage in a long discussion, so 
please view all questions as basically rhetorical.

I hope these comments may still prove to be helpful.

1.  Discretionary:
This first bullet:
"Your effort reporting inaccessibility can make a difference"

does not follow the same construction as the other seven 
bullets.  All of the other bullets start with verbs, so it would be 
ideal if this first one did, too.  I know we've discussed this quite 
a bit, so I am reluctant to suggest a solution, but here is a proposal:

Report inaccessibility, and you can make a difference.

2.  Necessary:

Currently:
"While it is best to approach an organization gently at first, be 
firm and recognize
that you might need become more assertive if further follow-up is necessary."

Add the word "to" here (see brackets):

"that you might need [to] become more"

3.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "many."

4.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "approach."

5.  Discretionary:

Currently:
"however the
more an organization hears about accessibility from its visitors or 
customers, the
more likelihood that this will become a high priority."

I think that perhaps "likely" would sound better than "likelihood."

I propose:

"however[add comma] the more an organization hears about 
accessibility from its visitors or customers, the more likely it is 
that this will become a high priority."

6.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "organization."

Can company be substituted sometimes, or is there a subtle 
distinction between the two i.e. maybe organizations are thought of 
as nonprofits, and companies are for-profits?  There may be a 
difference between the two, in the international context.

7.  Necessary:

"If you get an immediate "thank you for your feedback" reply, do not 
to assume your comments have been read."

Delete "to" in this phrase (see brackets):

"do not [to] assume"

8.  Necessary:

"Tell the organization which page or part of the site you were on 
when you experienced
the difficulties, and possibly what you were trying to do."

Propose:
"Tell the organization which page or part of the site you were on 
when you experienced
the difficulties, and describe what you were trying to do."

9.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "describe."

Possible substitutions, when relevant:
Outline
Discuss

10.  Necessary:

Currently:
"To encourage the organization act on your feedback, it should be constructive
and useful."

Ad the word "to" in this phrase (see brackets):

"encourage the organization [to] act"

11.  Necessary:

Currently:
"much of the text became overlapping with itself and"

Propose:

"much of the text overlapped with itself and"

Or maybe you mean:
"began to overlap with itself"

12.  Necessary:

Currently:
"If you do, you should try to replicate
the problem with all them - this can lend weight to your claims of 
poor accessibility."

Ad the word "of" (see brackets):

"If you do, you should try to replicate
the problem with all [of] them - this can lend weight to your claims 
of poor accessibility."

13.  Discretionary:

I notice that NVDA is named specifically, but then, there's voice 
recognition software described as "the Shark."

Could this prove problematic? Maybe there is real voice recognition 
software with this name.  My concern is the mixture of real browsers 
and real AT, vs. not.  Maybe it's fine.  See:

"I use Windows XP with Internet Explorer V.5 and the Shark voice 
recognition software,
V9.9, to navigate the computer screen and the Web.
I use the NVDA screen reader release 0.6 with Windows Vista Home 
edition and the Firefox browser version 3.0.5"

14.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "keep" in the "Keep Records" section.

One substitution might be "retain."

15.  Discretionary:

"I look forward to seeing your improvements - please contact me if I 
can be of further
assistance."

Maybe make a new sentence beginning with "Please."

16.  Discretionary:

Repetition of the word "different" in:

"Different organizations have different cultures and different 
systems for managing correspondence and handling feedback and complaints."


17.  Necessary:

"Some organizations can respond quickly - other cannot because of 
their size or internal processes."

See change in brackets:

"Some organizations can respond quickly[, while others cannot] 
because of their size or internal processes."

18.  Necessary:

"but that many organizations have formal process for updates and 
sometimes changes can take considerable time to be implemented."

See changes in brackets:

"but that many organizations have [a] formal process for updates[,] 
and sometimes changes can take considerable time"

19.  Necessary:

"Your records needs to include all contacts,"

Change "needs" to "need."

20. Discretionary:

See brackets:

"Unfortunately[add comma] many people find that organizations do not 
respond to their initial"

21.  I assume that when this document becomes available for public 
comment, that a "last revised" date will be included. I imagine this 
is done as a matter of course, but if not, it may be worth 
considering, although perhaps this document isn't expected to change.

Best,
Jennifer

Received on Thursday, 16 July 2009 15:39:19 UTC