Re: definition Re: RE Checkpoint 3.4 again

Wendy A Chisholm wrote:
> 
[snip]
 
> How about these definitions:
> 
> Text: words presented in written language intended for people to read.
> 
> (is "word" internationalized? is that why UAAG had to use "characters"? if
> that's the case, what if we just drop "words presented in" and leave the
> defn as "written language intended for people to read.")

I don't think that word is internationalized, but you should ask the
I18N
folks. 

Does "read" include spoken or brailled? That should be made clear.
 
> Non-text content: Information presented without written language intended
> to be understood by people.

I think that it's important to be clear whether you are talking about:
 
a) Encoding of information
b) Presentation of information.

In UAAG, we use "content" for pre-rendering info (content
equals what's in the DOM, in UAAG 1.0).

We use "text content" and "non-text content" for post-rendering,
however. We did this to reconcile UAAG 1.0 with WCAG 1.0 and
because we found it important for our requirements to 
distinguish the two.

May I suggest something like

 Text content: 
       Content that may be understood by people
       as human language when rendered visually, as speech,
       or as Braille.

Non-text content: 
       Content that, when rendered, does not convey 
       meaning through human language.

At first glance, these definitions would be consistent
with UAAG 1.0.

Note that these definitions allow pictures of letters
to be considered text content - is that what you expect?
These definitions are post-rendering only, so if you
have requirements related to formats (e.g., text formats),
proceed with caution.

 - Ian

-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Cell:                    +1 917 450-8783

Received on Thursday, 2 August 2001 11:48:12 UTC