RE: New issue: error recovery practices (Re: Proposed TAG Finding : Internet Media Type registration, consistency of use)

At 09:45 AM 2002-05-30, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

>If the browser is required to validate on demand, (no, not by writing a 
>script that gets the DOM that gets the validation routine, etc, but by a 
>simple button press), then the user at least has the option of returning 
>the results to the originator. It can even be automated as failure results 
>are now for MS systems; the system asks the user for permission to send 
>a message to Microsoft concerning the error.  Validation is just one of the 
>options for error detection.  That strategy takes advantage of a culture 
>in which the user does feedback software problems to vendors.  It is how 
>we do business now and there is no reason to think it won't work for the 
>web.
>
>I don't think it possible to clean up what's out there without involving 
>the customer to vendor loop.  That is where the feedback is going.

To do this, you have to serve the customers who are ready and willing to complain.  Here, contrary to the market in the large, people with disabilities may be in the majority.  So serve them, and you have a lever.

Lurking in the archives of the evaluation and repair discussions somewhere is a feedback loop that looks something like this:

It has three functional parts:

- file a complaint scriptlet that makes complaining a one-button operation.
 -- the scriptlet is the first form released as it can be used immediately.  This function migrates into screen readers and screen magnifiers when the other pieces are ready and stable.
- service site that helps the user prepare a trouble report that is readily understood and acted on by the recipient of the complaint.  By default validation is done at this server, and not in the browser.  The complaining user may not see but the web sponsor should get either a WAVE view of the problem or the URL for a WAVE view of the problem.  There is log information needed from the process that the user can't readily provide when it's not working; the user-process may need to include reproducing the failure scenario in operation through a logging intermediary.
- getCEO service that addresses the complaint where it belongs, not to the webmaster.

That's just a rough sketch, but that's what's available as a warm spare plan from our neck of the woods.

Al


>len
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@simonstl.com]
>
>If I believed that changing the messages the validator provided would
>have a positive effect, I would suggest it.  However, my real point is
>that the browser is the ultimate arbiter of what works, not the
>validator.  I don't think any level of improvement to the validator -
>except perhaps turning it into a browser - is going to change that.
>
>If you don't modify user-agent behavior, the feedback loop will remain
>limp and mostly useless.

Received on Thursday, 30 May 2002 11:03:56 UTC