Authoring Tool
Accessibility Guidelines Working Group
Requirements for ATAG "Wombat"
Status of this document
This document represents the requirements that the working group has
identified for a new version of Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines,
currently known by the name "Wombat". These requirements are developed on the
basis of implementation experience with ATAG 1.0 and
feedack from developers and other users of that document.
This document has been reviewed and agreed to by the Working group. It is
not endorsed by W3C or its members, and should not be cited except as a "work
in progress".
This document is a record of the current requirements that the Working
group feels an updated version of the Authoring Tool Accessiblity Guidelines
should meet. It is expected that this document will be updated in response to
further implementation experience with ATAG 1.0 from time
to time.
This document was last updated $Date: 2001/11/21 04:48:55 $
Requirements for ATAG "Wombat"
- The nature of the requirement for prompting was a subject of ongoing
debate. It is necessary to clarify whether a tool has to interrupt
workflow at any point in order to conform to checkpoints requiring
prompting, and the defininition given in the errata for ATAG 1.0 should
be incorporated.
- There are some unnecessary redundancies in ATAG 1.0 checkpoints, where
an evaluation of two different checkpoints requires the same test. This
should be eliminated.
- The draft must be ready to incorporate WCAG 2.0 as soon
as that is a Recommendation. This is a big requirement. Essentially that
means the group must develop techniques for WCAG 2.0 and get a
new version of ATAG through
Candidate Recommendation as fast as possible, and part of that involves
ironing out any bugs in ATAG 1.0. Note
however that it is not a requirement that the next version of the
Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines incorporate WCAG 2.0. If the
group feels that it would be beneficial to produce an updated
Recommendation before WCAG 2.0 is a recommendation that should still be
possible.
- It should be clear in the draft which relative priority chekpoints
apply to all WCAG checkpoints,
and which only apply to some of them, especially with regard to ATAG 1.0
checkpoints 3.1 and 3.2
- It must be clear in the draft what level of implementation is required
functionality to conform to a checkpoint, and what is merely suggested or
is optional further functionality.
- Each checkpoint in the draft should include a rationale for why it is
included in the requirements.