Re: plotting accessibility

Kai Hendry wrote at 16/06/2004 08:32 ...
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 09:54:46AM +0100, Roger Gimson wrote:
> 
>>>It's confusing! d-i should really come up with uniform user agent
>>>guidelines. Like UAs must show the url. Must be able to edit it. Must be
>>>able to view source. Must be able to handle xxxx size documents. Must be
>>>able to report errors. And so forth.
>>
>>I strongly disagree. We do not wish to restrict the ability of UA 
>>developers to offer different ways of controlling web access. Rather, we 
> 
> You won't be restricting them. They could be guidelines they should try
> meet. An etiquette. Some developers don't know good manners.

Your suggested guidelines (UAs must show the URL, and must be able to 
edit it etc.) may not be appropriate, for example, for a kiosk UA that 
only has a touch-screen interface to content from specific servers. The 
Web imposes no restrictions of the kinds of UA that may be used to 
access resources, it just defines the meaning of the delivered markup.

>>would like to ensure the delivered markup and metadata is appropriate 
>>for the needs of the user (via their chosen UA). So, for example, I 
>>should be able to use a voice-only interface to the web if I wish 
>>(useful for the visually impaired as well as when driving a car). This 
>>might *not* offer the ability to show or edit a URI, but simply to 
> 
> Voice and other related modes of interaction IMO is little unrealistic
> right now. It is bound to be rubbish. Anyway semi-decent voice
> technology is all patented. Lets start with the browser interface.

Browser design must take into account the needs of the user and the 
modalities of the access mechanism, and will evolve over time to offer a 
wide range of functionality. Imposing specific user interface 
guidelines, oriented only to current mainstream keyboard-and-screen 
products, may prevent such evolution.

>>invoke links and back/forward. However, the delivered content must 
>>clearly be suitable for auditory presentation - either by the origin 
>>server offering this as a possible representation for the accessed page, 
>>or by some adaptation (in the UA or an intermediary) from text to speech 
>>(which requires some sematic markup of the text to do a good job).
> 
> No one is going to mark up text for voice.  User agents will have to do
> it, with natural language processing.

The work of the Voice Browser activity (http://www.w3.org/Voice/) shows 
there is demand for such markup.

>>>Else where else is this going to be done?
>>
>>UA interfaces should not be standardised. It should be a matter of UA 
>>providers meeting the variety of needs of the marketplace, and being 
>>judged on their relative merits.
> 
> Hehe "market place". 

...which includes open source as well as proprietary.

> Monopolies rule the web right now. Do you think people will be able to
> judge and compare Nokia's XHTML browser? There is no choice once they've
> bought the phone.

It is hard to separate software and hardware for a phone and still 
achieve an effective user interface, since getting the balance right 
between hard and soft controls is critical. The choice is between 
different phone makes/models which offer different overall user 
experiences (of which the browser is a part).

>>>If I pick up a mobile, and use their XHTML browser I would like to know
>>>if it's going to work or not. 
>>
>>If a UA claims to support XHTML, it should be possible to certify that 
>>it actually conforms to the Recommendation (by test suites etc). 
>>Incresing emphasis is now being placed on providing test suites and 
>>conformance requirements with all W3C Recommendations (see 
>>http://www.w3.org/QA/).
> 
> Test suites won't happen. Especially automated ones. You need someone to
> verify the behaviour of browsers.
> 
> As I said earlier, all I would like to see is some mark for authors to
> aim for. Right now my mobile XHTML browser doesn't do media queries, has
> all sorts of basic UI problems and I still can't figure out the maximum
> size of document it can handle. 

A 'W3C Mobile Profile' conformance mark might be a good idea, at least 
to help the phone buyer when comparing models.

> "Authoring Techniques for Device Independence" is what many people know
> already. What we need is a decent level of browser. I am afraid basic
> questions authors are asking are not being answered with CC/PP. 

CC/PP is only one step towards a more device independent Web. See the 
latest Working Draft on Content Selection for how this might be 
presented to web authors:
   http://www.w3.org/TR/cselection/

Roger

Received on Thursday, 17 June 2004 04:56:51 UTC