RE: Glossary: yes, let's toss 'afford' etc. in the hopper

This is my exact arguement as to why we should not list ONE generic
definition.  I suggest listing the vernacular, and then the others as it
relates to each technology. Certainly many terms can be brought into line to
work for 3, 4 or more documents, buy  in some cases that may not be the
true..................................................Katie

-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Al Gilman
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 5:09 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea; WAI Glossary Caucus c/o
Subject: Glossary: yes, let's toss 'afford' etc. in the hopper


At 02:40 PM 2001-04-12 -0400, Katie Haritos-Shea wrote:
>Thanks Al,
>Another term for the glossary?........................I think
>so..........................Katie
>
>[Jargon to capture: 'afford, affordance' -- etc.]
>

Yes, I hope so.

I hope we can be context-aware as we work on terminology.  That is to say
aware
of how other people talk about our topics.  This clearly has to include the
common, vernacular vocabulary that nearly everyone understands, but it also
extends to things like this where there is a neighbor discipline which talks
about a concept that is key for our work with a jargon term like 'afford.' 
It
was clearly part of the shared culture at SIGCHI.  And thoroughly jargony to
me, although hearing it in context I could follow what it was intended to
mean.

Al


>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org
[<mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org%5DOn>mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org]On
>Behalf Of Al Gilman
>Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 10:25 AM
>To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>Subject: Re: what type of document do we want?
>
>
>At 06:48 AM 2001-04-10 -0400, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>>As a start in the direction of providing illustrations for the guidelines,
>>I took William's challenge, and made a web site (3 pages) that illustrate
>>the points in Guideline 3 ...
>>
>> It is a rough estimate of what is needed (and it is NOT complete as it is
>>now). Take a look at
>>
>><<http://www.erols.com/stevepem/guidelines/G3>http://www.erols.com/stevep
em/guidelines/G3><http://www.erols.com/stevepem>http://www.erols.com/stevepe
m
>/guidelines/G3
>>
>
>AG::
>
>One of the great virtues of these illustrations is that they expose flaws
in
>the verbal statement of what we are trying to convey.
>
>For example, it is not a good idea to state 3.1 before 3.2.
>
>In the rough draft illustrations, the illustrations of 3.1 and 3.2 leave
the
>reader free to believe that they are not easy to do at the same time.
>Unnecessary differences between the layout designs in the 3.1 illustration
>and
>3.2 illustration confuse the reader because they must then construct in
>their
>mind a different example that illustrates both 3.1 and 3.2 at once, in
>order to
>believe that they can follow this set of guidelines.  We don't want to
leave
>that exercise to the reader.
>
>People react to illustrations in a gestalt way.  Trying to illustrate one
>principle with an illustration that violates another principle or even
>clashes
>with another illustration will risk delivering the message that the
>different
>rules cannot be satisfied concurrently and the reader may ignore our advice
>because they can imagine it is impossible to comply.
>
>The way this problem has been solved in the past is that while the book
>introduces features and examples of these features first, followed by a
>comprehensive example that combines the features, the authors of the book
>have
>to develop the comprehensive example first and then extract the feature
>examples from the composite to use as the feature illustrations.  This is
>the
>only way to exhibit in our expository style the two-to-three principles
that
>are concealed in the current wording of 3.1 and 3.2:
>
>These have to do with the use of _presentation qualities_ in presenting
>ideas:
>
>1.  Parts of a page (and sub-parts of building blocks in the page) that
play
>different roles within their enclosing superstructures should be
>distinguished
>by differences in presentation qualities (font, colour, indentation,
border,
>etc.).
>
>2.  Parts of different pages (and sub-parts of building blocks in those
>pages)
>that play similar roles in their respective superstructures should be
>associated by the use of similar presentation qualities.
>
>Note:  In the above, the "associated superstructures" constitute a
>multi-level
>thread of ancestors, and not only the role of the item in its
>immediate-parent
>part.  So navigation blocks play a particular role relative to the site.
>They
>should be presented consistently to theme this relationship to the site,
>regardless of what frame, table or page they happen to be part of.  This is
>a
>conceptual way to embed _type_ distinctions in the notion of _roles_. 
Types
>are "roles in the universe."
>
>3.  Avoid differences in presentation qualities that lack a compelling
>motivation based on 1. and 2. above.  Contain or prevent font sprawl, for
>example.
>
>Using feature illustrations drawn from the comprehensive illustration is a
>way
>of reducing the amount of new stuff the reader has to digest in order to
>grok
>our message.
>
>The imperative to illustrate is not part of Guideline 3 but of guideline 1
>on
>the use of redundancy.
>
>Guideline A is about using redundancy to drive home your message in as many
>different ways as you can.  This is a technique for achieving effective
>communication.
>
>Checkpoints under guideline A should include:
>
>A.x Avoid single point failure modes:
>
>In particular, if some content is dependent on the use of a particular
>sense,
>provide an alternative that is not dependent on that sense and that serves
>to
>perform roughly the same function, to deliver roughly the same information
>or
>afford the same action opportunity.
>
>[Jargon to capture: 'afford, affordance' -- from Human Factors and HCI
>usage.
>An affordance is an effective service delivery; one that makes it into user
>space where the user can actually use it.  Or the effect of the service
>delivery as observed within user space.]
>
>A.y Employ vernacular:
>
>Where a widely recognized motif or icon for an idea exists, use it, or use
>something that conveys a pretty clear allusion to it.  Example: Microsoft
>Windows Recycle Bin makes a pretty clear allusion to the Apple OS Trash.
>
>Al
>
>Only by seeing that an illustration of 3.1 that doesn't reflect
>> Anne
>>
>>At 06:51 AM 4/8/01 -0700, William Loughborough wrote:
>>>At 08:50 PM 4/7/01 +0100, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote:
>>>>None the less If someone can produce 30 words of 'approved' plain text,
I
>>>>am more than happy to illustrate.
>>>
>>>WL: OK here's 32 words - if you drop the "and" from 3.2 and 3.6 you've
got
>>>the requested 30.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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Received on Monday, 16 April 2001 10:15:07 UTC