Re: Definition "content" :PLEASE DEFINE

Charles McCathieNevile wrote:

> Right. If we have 4 clear definitions, including one term that exactly
> matches the needs of UAAG which will not be confused with what WCAG means,
> then I think we will be doing better than if we do have the same term used
> differently in different specs. This is particularly true for ATAG, which
> effectively requires its audience to read both WCAG and UAAG.
> 
> There is a discussion on IG about background images and whether they are
> covered by WCAG checkpoint 1.1 because they are content - my hope is that
> this sort of discussion can be avoided in future by better defining
> the different meanings.
> 
> In this case, the proposed term "document content" would be what UAAG means,
> whereas "information provided by the document" would be what WCAG most often
> means.


Here are the assumptions of UAAG 1.0:


In UAAG 1.0, we do talk about content "whose recognized role is 
to create a purely stylistic effect." The expectation is that
the user agent can recognize this role from the content. For 
example, from style sheets.

Our assumption is that style sheets should only be used to create 
stylistic effects. So a background image set by style sheets 
would not require a text equivalent (no more than it would be 
necessary to have a text equivalent "red" for a red background 
color). Style is, of course, "important". But if the author has 
used style sheets to set a background image that conveys 
important "information", it would seem to be a misuse of style 
sheets. Setting a background image through a style attribute of 
HTML is the same thing.

Authors may misuse markup. For UAAG 1.0, we must assume that they 
also use markup correctly in some cases.

   - Ian


-- 
Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Monday, 21 January 2002 10:06:10 UTC