WART - An EARL Report Tool
Abstract
EARL allows someone to describe how well Web content or a tool follows
guidelines or specifications. For example, using EARL you can describe if a
particular image is used in an accessible way on a Web page. Or if a user
agent displays SVG images properly. "Properly" is defined by the SVG
specification. "Accessible" is defined in WCAG.
This tool will help you step through a specification and create a
conformance report. The report is stored as EARL but may be transformed into
XHTML or any other XML-based language.
Plan
- Name? "WART" stands for "Web Accessibility Report Tool"
and EARL is more than that. How about "Conformance Report Tool"
(acronym collision with CRT!) or EARL Report Tool or ... suggestions?
For now, I'll call it WART since that's more fun.
Perhaps it will just stand for, "Whatever. Anything Report Tool."
- Learn existing WART code
(that also will likely mean increasing my limited Perl knowledge).
- Modify the existing forms.
- Create one set for ATAG. Work with CMN on this that will step
authoring tool developers through an ATAG evaluation. Basically,
create an interface to the Techniques for Evaluating
Authoring Tool Accessibility. [Did Jutta and ATRC find resources
to work on this? If so, coordinate/collaborate with that person.]
- Modify the existing set which apply to WCAG.
- Generate EARL - Gather info from form and generate EARL report. RDF Perl
modules from CPAN.
- Send e-mail with EARL attached. Perl module to send
e-mail w/attachments.
- Continue adding future features as described or thought about, e.g.:
- investigate storing EARL results as annotations, ala Annotea. Talk
with Ralph and Eric P about that possibility.
- plug in Sean's EARL to XHTML filter to create a more readable human
report.
- Add various levels of reports (technical and detailed, not
technical, subjective)
- Be able to submit EARL information from other tools to combine into
a single report. Keep Giorgio (from UsableNet) and HiSoftware up to
date so that they might be some of our first producers of EARL.
- A different implementation - DOM? Device independence? QA?
I'll be updating the ERT WG as I progress, getting feedback along the way.
Once the basic forms are in place and it generates EARL, perhaps ask for
feedback in a wider audience. Be sure to keep the ERT-type developers updated
so they could begin implementing and sharing data with us.
$Date: 2001/07/03 14:46:03 $ Wendy Chisholm