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WAI Page Authoring Guidelines Issues List for the Working Drafts (Pre-Rec)

Last revised: $Date: 2000/11/08 08:27:06 $

This page shows the history of issues the PA WG resolved prior to the PA guidelines document going to last call.

Table of Contents of Issues

Closed issues

Proposal to restructure first three guidelines

Issue raised by: Eric Hansen and Jon Gunderson, 17 March.

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: merge Guidelines, examine results. The specifics are available in the minutes.

Proposal to remove class="nav" from checkpoint example

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: move to Techniques document.

What does "sounds that are played automatically" mean?

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: "where there is no user interaction to trigger them."

How many shortcuts to links?

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 16 Mar 1999

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: add the word "important" to the checkpoint so it talks about important links.

Controlling unstable scripting environments

Issue raised by: Jaap van Lelieveld - 15 Mar 1999

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: This is more for the user agent group. Action Al Gilman to send a summary of the discussion.

Say anything about "title" for images?

Issue raised by: Jon Gunderson, 17 March.

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: No.

How is "summary" supposed to be used to indicate a table is for layout?

Issue raised by: Jon Gunderson, 17 March.

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: Delete this.

Priority of grouping related links?

Issue raised by: Jon Gunderson, 17 March.

Issues

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: In light of definition of priorities, leave as priority 3.

Ensure that content is organized properly

Issue raised by: Phill Jenkins - 20 March.

Issues

Change:

8.3 For pages that use style sheets or presentation markup, ensure that the content of each page is organized logically.

To:

8.3 Ensure that the content is organized properly [1], including content that uses style sheets, presentation markup, applets, or programmatic objects [2]. [Priority 1]

This makes it more likely that the content will be understood even when styles are turned off, overridden by the user, or unsupported by the user agent. Provide equivalent content and descriptions that are organized properly [1] for applets and programmatic objects [2] so they will be understood even when they are turned off, overridden by the user, or unsupported by the user agents. Techniques for checkpoint 8.3

Then:

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: It's ok for checkpoints to not start with a verb for "until" and conditional cases.

Making scripts accessible.

Issue raised by: Wendy Chisholm - 22 March 1999.

Issues

I think the checkpoints for scripts ought to read like this:

  1. Ensure your page is usable without scripts. P1. If you cannot make the page usable without scripts, provide an equivalent mechanism to provide the function of the script.
  2. Ensure that elements with scripting events are keyboard operable. P1 (i.e. directly accessible so maybe a P2 if #1 is satisfied).
  3. We probably don't need text equivalents for scripts other than those that have some purely visual impact.

Resolution

From 23 March minutes:

Raise priority of style sheets to 1

Issue raised by: Warner ten Kate - 11 March 1999.

Issues

Possible to make priority 1 in light of use latest W3C specs wording?

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: No change, based on definition of priorities.

Note on use of decorative

Issue raised by: Warner ten Kate - 11 March 1999 and follow-up Warner, 15 march

Issues

Should the checkpoint on ensuring all information is available without color be modified to allow purely decorative color and no backup mechanism?

Proposal

When text has a purely decorative value and conveys no information other than the color itself, it is not necessary to provide that information elsewhere

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: No, the checkpoint should not contain this information.

Checkpoint 12.5 (avoid word wrap) and proper use of table markup

Issue raised by: Tim Berners-Lee - 14 March 1999

Issues

Using different markup to avoid word wrap when TABLE is the correct choice is a mistake. What to say in this checkpoint?

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: With "until user agents", this is ok. Also, add a word not to discourage proper use of tables.

Braille devices with mice

Issue raised by: Japp van Lelieveld - 15 March 1999

Issues

It is mentioned here braille-displays do not have a "pointing device". This is not true any more. Nearly ALL today's brailledisplays include a pointing / clicking mechnism. The problem though is "where to click" instead of "how to click".

Resolution

From 23 March minutes: Remove parenthetical comment.

Priority of relative units

Issue raised by: Jon Gunderson - 16 March 1999

Issues

I think this checkpoint needs to be priority 1. If you use absolute units in style sheet as soon as you increase font size you get alphabet soup. Or if you leave it priority 2 could you add a reference in the techniques document to have them check their page with style sheets turned off, to make sure the page reads logically.

Resolution

From 23 March minutes:

Closed Issues

Interim and future techniques

Issue raised by: 1998JulSep/0002

Resolved:

Issue

We have several guidelines that are associated with several different techniques. Some of the techniques will work with current browsers, but are so convoluted or not elegant that they should eventually become obsolete. However, we can't recommend that the newer, more elegant strategies be used until they are widely supported.

Working Draft Specifications

  1. By separating the techniques into their own document, we are able to generalize the techniques.
  2. We also added language such as, "until browsers support" to techniques that are more applicable in the future.
  3. @@ In the techniques document we will link to sites that track browser support

Decision strategies for authors

Issue raised by: 1998JulSep/0001

Resolved:

Issues

In a number of places we say that you must do something if it is 'enough.' For example, if tables are complex enough you must blah blah. or If images present enough info you should use LONGDESC. What is the best way to help authors determine which guidelines they need to follow and of those that they are following, which techniques should they apply.

Working Draft Specifications

  1. The language for techniques and guidelines has been modified to be more explicit.
  2. Tthe upcoming release of a checklist should further help people make decisions.

Support for cognitive disabilities

Issue raised by: Al Gilman - 27 Aug 1998

Issue resolved: 14 Jan 1999

Issues

Have we appropriately conveyed what needs to be done for people with cognitive disabilities? Have we sufficiently stated that graphics should not be avoided but used with care? Do we need to mention the use of "easily understandable" graphics; perhaps in "Good Design"?

Actions

  1. In the December 7, 1998 working group draft, several guidelines were reworked such that there now exists a guideline related to comprehension (B.3) and another related to navigation (B.2). However, is this enough? Are language and other issues properly addressed (see the thread "Priority for Techniques Dealing with Foreign Language Markup")?
  2. On December 9, Judy Brewer sent a request for Cross Disability Review to several organizations, including some that represent people with cognitive disabilities.

Resolution

We seem to cover the issues in the guidelines, however, the priority of those issues is a separate item. Markup of foreign language is also a separate item.

Needed definitions

Issue raised by: 1998JulSep/0097 & 1998OctDec/0033 29 Jul 1998 & 23 Oct 1998

Issue resolved: 14 Jan 1999

Issues

Definitions needed for tables: "well written," "complex," "simple"

Proposals

  1. To get around having to define "complex" tables rewrite the table guidelines as proposed by Charles McCathieNevile.
  2. Use classes to define table types (such as wai-column or wai-data) as suggested by Jon Gunderson.
  3. Definition of complex tables - Daniel Dardailler - 23 Oct 1998

Resolution and Actions

  1. A.8.2 and A.8.3 were promoted from Priority 2 to Priority 1.
  2. A.8.2 now says, " For data tables, identify headers for rows and columns (e.g., the HTML TD and TH elements). [Priority 1]
  3. A.8.3 now says, "For data tables that have more than one row and/or more than one column of header cells, use markup to associate data cells and header cells (e.g., in HTML, THEAD, TFOOT, TBODY, COLGROUP, the "axis", "scope", and "headers" attributes, etc.).

Emphasizing universal design

Issue raised by: Daniel Dardailler - 23 Nov 1998

Issue resolved: 14 Jan 1999

Issues

  1. Guidelines should emphasize Universal Design.
  2. Implies reworking content, particularly rationales, to broaden focus from disability to universal design.
  3. Will sell better.
  4. Need to be careful that we dont weaken the use of guidelines by places that want to legally require accessibility but cannot require general usability.

Resolution

We won't mention "universal design" explicitly in the guidelines but we will include universal design-type reasons as good ancillary reasons for compliance. We have no mandate telling us to write these guidelines for universal design, but it is good to point out. The introductory text to the guidelines will clarify the relationship between device independence and accessibility.

Priorities and ratings

Issue raised by: Gregg Vanderheiden - 17 Nov 1998

Issue resolved:

Issues

  1. The guidelines themselves aren't assigned a priority based upon their merit. They, in fact, inherit their priority as being whatever the highest priority of the technique that is listed under them.
  2. The priorities between guidelines and techniques can be confusing.
  3. The majority of guidelines are P1, a handful are P2, and none are P3 (due to the inheritence of priority from techniques).
  4. Some guidelines should probably be a P1, but because there are no P1 techniques they are a P2.

Proposals

  1. Remove priorities from the guidelines, leave on techniques.
  2. Implement "impact ratings" by disability group for each technique.

Actions and Resolutions

  1. Priorities have been removed from the guidelines in the guidelines document (but remain for techniques).
  2. Concensus reached on:
    1. Ratings only on checkpoints, not on guidelines.
    2. A single priority rating based on impact.

Renaming the guidelines document

Issue raised by: Gregg Vanderheiden - 10 Nov 1998

Issue resolved:

Issue

In the current title ("WAI Page Author Guidelines") "Page Author" is not appropriate since persons usually author more than a single page. There is consensus that:

  1. The title should reflect that it addresses more than just a single page in isolation.
  2. The phrase "Universal Design" should not be used in the title since it carries so many negative connotations (so "Universal Design Guidelines for WWW Documents" is out).
  3. We don't want to focus in on particular technologies (so "HTML and CSS Accessible Design Guidelines" is out).

Proposals

  1. Web Author Guidelines
  2. Site Author Guidelines
  3. Web Content Accessible Guidelines.
  4. Web Site Accessibility Guidelines
  5. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative Author Guidelines (then make other groups - W3C WAI User Agent Guidelines and W3C WAI Authoring Tools Guidelines)
  6. Guidelines for Accessible Web Sites
  7. Web Site Accessibility - WAI Guidelines for Authors
    User Agent Accessibility - Guidelines for software developers.
    Authoring Tool Accessibility - Guidelines for tool developers. (got at least 4 votes and was the last suggestion of the most recent thread)
  8. W3C/WAI Web Site Accessibility Guidelines - for authors.
    W3C/WAI User Agent Accessibility Guidelines - for software developers.
    W3C/WAI Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines - for tool developers.
  9. The framework of the names for the WAI set of guidelines was determined by the Coordnation Group. They chose, "W3C working group chosen phrase Accessibility Guidelines." The group needs to determine whether they like "site" or "content."

Actions

  1. After telecon discussion on 14 Jan 1999 the following names were sent to the wai-gl list: W3C Web Site Accessibility Guidelines or W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
  2. Several people responded favorably to "Web Accessibility Guidelines" as per Al Gilman's discussion.
  3. The Coordination Group decided that the name would be "Web Content Accessibility Guidelines."

Changing the priority of checkpoints

Issue raised by: Daniel Dardailler - 6 Jan 1999

Issue resolved:

Issues

the priority of several checkpoints ought to be lowered from P1 to P2.

  1. A.5.2
  2. A.10.1
  3. A.10.2
  4. A.9.1
  5. A.9.2
  6. A.1.6

Proposals

  1. A.9.1 - See the next issue, "Legacy solutions and priorities"

Actions

  1. A.5.2 - to become P2, unless any versions of UA can not override color.
  2. A.10.1 - keep as P1
  3. A.10.2 - include more accurate information (if available). keep P1.
  4. A.9.1 - keep P1
  5. A.9.2 - checkpoint to reflect more general idea, move HTML specifics to techniques document, keep p1.
  6. A.1.6 - update checkpoint to read: ASCII art should either be replaced with Image, Alt, longdesc, OR a description and mechanism to avoid it. maintain priority 1.

Server guidelines: browser sniffing, content negotiation, etc.

Issue raised by: Nir Dagan - 12 Dec 1998

Issue resolved:

Issues

  1. What information should the guidelines cover in regards to HTTP Content-Language header information?
  2. Do we need a section devoted to HTTP server guidelines that would discuss not doing browser sniffing&discrimination, supporting language/content negociation, etc.? If not, where does this issue fall?
  3. How many authors have control over the configuration of the server serving their pages?
  4. How many authors are willing or able to modify these settings?

Proposals

  1. A separate W3C document: Webmaster guidelines.
  2. Integrate into current document.

Actions

As discussed in the 21 Jan 1999 teleconference, proposed language will be incorporated into the guidelines and techniques documents.

Style sheets in the guidelines

Issue raised by: Nir Dagan - 23 Nov 1998

Issue resolved: 28 Jan 1999

Issues

  1. Tips for style sheets are needed.
  2. Are these just good design or increased accessibility?

Proposals

see Nir's message (and the following threads) for proposed techniques and wording.

Actions

  1. Ths issues was discussed at the 21 Jan 1999 teleconference.
  2. It was determined that nothing else needed to be added to the Guidelines document, but that something may need to be added to the Techniques document. Daniel is following up with the W3C CSS gurus for suggestions.

Legacy solutions and priorities

Issue raised by: Charles McCathieNevile - 6 Jan 1998

Issue resolved: 28 Jan 1999

Issues

  1. Some checkpoints should currently be P1 to work with older technologies still widely used. However, as technology evolves, the priority of the checkpoint will decrease.

Proposals

  1. Reinstate a time sensitive label of some sort.
  2. "beef up the current a.13 'use interim solutions...', separate it from the general flow, and give it a slightly different priority structure - one which recognises that the priorities may change. (for example A B C, where A means 'currently used technologies cannot cope without this checkpoint', B means 'currently used technologies can only barely cope without etc etc')"

Actions

The group recognizes that some priority 1 items will not be priority 1 in the future as user agents incorporate needed mechanisms. Therefore, items should be priority 1 if a well designed UA can not handle it (e.g., descriptions of images - author has to provide, the UA can't synthesize) and priority 2 otherwise (e.g., frames are navigable by some UAs but not all).

Priority of checkpoints that address cognitive disabilities

Issue raised by: Gregg Vanderheiden - 14 Jan 1999 (teleconference call) Raised again by Jonathan Chetwynd - 2 Mar 1999

Issue resolved: 19 Feb 1999, reconfirmed 11 Mar 1999

Issues

  1. We are concerned that there is not a P1 checkpoint specifically for cognitive disability concerns but the group could not come up with any others that didn't seem to already be covered (at their base level - they will be expanded on in the techniques doc). During the teleconference we discussed B.3.1 and B.3.2 as possible checkpoints to raise in priority.
  2. Checkpoint B.3.1 is currently a Priority 2. Could it be raised to Priority 1? ("Use the simplest and most straightforward language that is possible for the content of your site. [Priority 2] ")
    1. We will be requiring people to use "as simple as possible" language.
    2. It is hard to determine if people follow. However, we don't rate things based on how easy it is to comply with but on how necessary it is for access.
    3. On some sites, simplifying the vocabulary means a loss of precision. Will the wording of this guideline address this problem or will people just complain that their sites don't lend themselves to simple language?
    4. This is similar to what the HTML 4 working group went through with ABBR and ACRONYM. They aren't defined that differently in the dictionary, people have different interpretations and UAs already had various implementations. Therefore, they decided they didn't need to define the difference between them nor outline how decide which to use; they left them both in.
    5. With at least one of these as a Priority 1, we would show strong support for cognitive disabilities.
  3. Checkpoint B.3.2 (use of graphics where appropriate to facilitate comprehending) is currently a Priority 3, but might be a Priority 2. ("Use icons or graphics (with alternative text) where they facilitate comprehension of the page. [Priority 3] ")
    1. Should not be a Priority 1 because it is sometimes harder to interpret images rather than words.
    2. Increasing the priority to at least 2 might decrease the perception that we say "images are bad, don't use them."
  4. We should also consider giving one or both a variable priority, along the lines of, "If the information is important to understanding the page, make it a P1 otherwise P2."

Proposals

  1. We should have a general staement in the introduction that says something about important information/functionality, and 'presentational candy' - in the latter case it is acceptable to let the content/function disappear so long as it doesn't break the document.
  2. The only general page authoring mechanism is to ask the author to provide redundent forms of information and hopefully the user agent will allow the user to filter the representations that is most effective for themselves.

Resolutions and Actions

  1. B.3.1 is a p2, B.3.2 is P3.
  2. Style writing guidelines were added to techniques document.
  3. The rationale for B.3 was "beefed up."
  4. The checkpoint (B.3.1) was reworded.
  5. The priority for "Use icons or graphics (with a text equivalent)" (now 16.2) was kept at P3.

Math and Science guidelines

Issue raised by: Jon Gunderson - 8 Dec 1998

Issue resolved: 18 Feb 1999

Issues

  1. Important for accessibility.
  2. Direction is needed for professors using math on the Web (30-40% of UIUC campus using math on web pages). It needs to be visible (i.e., it's own checkpoint).
  3. Too few solutions.
  4. It is covered in the guidelines already (use W3C technologies, provide descriptions of important graphical information), but the examples don't include.

Proposals

  1. Today use image with alt and a description, in the future use MathML.

Actions

As discussed in the 21 Jan 1999 teleconference, proposed language will be sent to the list to include server strategies in current checkpoints (actually sent on 8 Feb).

Conformance

Issue raised by: Charles McCathieNevile - 4 Dec 1998

Issue resolved: 11 Feb 1999

Issues

  1. The list of checkpoints "form a set of criteria which can be satisfied to provide a rebuttal presumption that the guidelines have been met."

Proposals

  1. "So the statement of conformance would say that a document or resource must satisfy the guidelines to be accessible. Further, there are a number of techniques which have been established, along with a statemnt of their relative importance, as means to implement the guidelines in specific circumstances. "

Actions

  1. Passed to Coordination Group. We are waiting to see how this issue is handled in UA.
  2. Discussed and resolved on telecon then follow-up on list. Read the proposal from the 11 Feb telecon.

Device independence

Issue raised by: Charles McCathieNevile - 22 Dec 1998

Issue resolved: 11 Feb 1999

Issues

Need to make A.12 more general.

Proposal

Ensure that features of the page can be activated in ways that are not device specific.

Rationale: (obvious)

General: in general it is sufficient to ensure keyboard access, as most sytems allow other devices to provide control as if it were done from the keyboard.

Checkpoint: Use of mouse-specific triggers onMouseOver etc is not accessible, and some alternative means of accessing the functionality is required. Note: Hopefully this will be addressed in future versions of HTML and User Agents. In particlar some mouse-based events such as onClick, as interpreted by common browsers, could easily be replaced by non-device specific events such as onActivate.

Resolutions and Actions

Added checkpoint to the device-independence guideline that says, "For scripts, specify logical event handlers rather than device-dependent event handlers. [Priority 2] For example, in HTML use "onfocus", "onblur", and "onselect". "

Absolute positioning

Issue raised by: Nir Dagan - 6 Jan 1999

Issues

  1. Why is relative (with respect to containing element) better than absolute (with respect to view port) positioning? I would replace the checkpoint with: Don't use absolute font size. (in regards to "A.6.5 Use relative sizing and positioning (e.g., percent values) rather than absolute (e.g., pixel or point values). [Priority 2]" )
  2. Won't it make a page unreadable if the fonts are magnified?

Resolutions and Actions

Checkpoint says," Use relative rather than absolute units in markup language attribute values and style sheet property values. [Priority 2] For example, in CSS, use 'em' or percentages lengths rather than 'pt' or 'cm', which are absolute units. " Absolute positioning is still a problem. Will be discussed in Techniques doc.

Checkpoint requiring DTD or formal grammar

Issue raised by: Jason White - 2 Mar 1999

Issue resolved: 11 Mar 1999

Issue

A checkpoint that requires authors to comply with document type definitions as provided in W3C specifications, seems to have disappeared from the guidelines. While guideline 13 refers to using W3C technologies according to specification, it does not mention compliance with a valid DTD.

Resolutions and Actions

Add a Priority 2 checkpoint that says, "Create documents that validate to published formal grammars (i.e., document type definitions or schemas) and identify those grammars."

Nest headings properly

Issue raised by: Warner ten Kate - 11 Mar 1999

Issue resolved: 11 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. we need to explicitly say that use of H1 conveys structure
  2. we need to distinguish between improper nesting and skipping levels (one more serious than other).
    1. No H3 before H2.
    2. H2 -> (H3) -> H4 -> H3 >
  3. the use of heading levels should reflect the structural organisation of textual context. (ala Warner)

Resolutions and Actions

  1. New wording for checkpoint 5.1: Use header elements to convey logical structure and use them according to specification.
  2. In techniques, tell readers:
    1. Don't use Hx for font effects
    2. Don't skip levels
    3. Order/nest appropriately.
    4. Include a technique with DIV/Hx to show how to control a whole section with style sheets.

The Specifics of Conformance Claims

Issue raised by: Eric Hanson - 3 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. Is the correct way to denote the conformance level with {P1, P12, P123} or {A, AA, AAA} or {CL-1, CL-2, CL-3} or other?
  2. The conformance statement should be reworded to contain more specific information, some of which ought to appear in a detailed discussion in the Techniques document.

Resolutions and Actions

  1. Issue 1 has been resolved (see 11 March minutes) in that the group reached consensus on using, "A/Double-A/Triple-A"
  2. Still open as of 22 March teleconference. See proposal from Judy.

Priority of checkpoints related to color

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

Does the priority of "Use high color contrast" (4.2) decrease when "Ensure that information is understandable without color" (4.1) is done well?

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Accessibility of lists

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. Marking up lists correctly is not a P2 but a P3 checkpoint.
  2. Discussion about the usefulness of lists as navigation aids (see Jason White't message).

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

BLOCKQUOTE for indentation

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. Should be a higher priority to ensure that pages can be used when style sheets are turned off Therefore if it's important that a paragraph be set off (e.g. indented) I'd use BLOCKQUOTE instead of relying on style sheets. What aids or other tools would be adversely affected in real life by this?
  2. If this element is used inappropriately, then a speaking browser, a braille translator, etc., will treat the enclosed text as a quotation, thus providing the reader with an inaccurate understanding of the document's content. Also, the use of BLOCKQUOTE for purposes of indentation violates the separation of content and presentation. (see Jason White't message).

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Use of "title"

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. When link text can't be reasonably worded so as to be understood out of context, TITLE should be used to add longer names for the links that would distinguish them from each other. This is a very powerful technique and of much benefit to accessibilty aids and other tools (such as those that provide a list of the links in a page).
  2. The "title" attribute in HTML is meant for advisory titles (e.g., on a link, to describe the target). It should not be assigned the exclusive role of providing a description of an image, script, etc.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Priority of "Use latest W3C technologies" (13.1)

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

Why is it a P1? Think it should be a P3. In many cases, using older, more established recommendations are more beneficial.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Priority of "Avoid deprecated features" (Checkpoint 13.2)

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

Recommend demoting it to Pri 3, as it doesn't necessarily cause accessibility problems. If the only problem is one of compatibility with screen readers, then the fact that a good number of UA (like IE, using Active Accessibility, or future UA which could put a default placeholder in as an option) don't have that problem would seem to relegate it to lower priority.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Priority of "Divide long lists into groups" (Checkpoint 14.5)

Issue raised by: Greg Lowney - 8 Mar 1999

Issue

Should be P3 since it improves usability not basic accesibility.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Who's responsible - author or user agent?

Issue raised by: Tim Berners-Lee (and others)

Issue

In relation to several of the recent discussions, such as accessibility of lists and headers, there is a fine line between who has the primary responsibility for providing access - the author or the user agent. For example, Charles McCathieNevile gives an example of how to make a list maximally accessible (see Charles' message from ....). He is adding information to the list structure that could potentially be provided by the user agent in the future. Do we drop these? Add an "until browsers..." clause?

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Clarity of natural language guideline (Guideline 6)

Issue raised by: Misha Wolf - 10 Mar 1999

Issue

I'm baffled by the title: "Supplement markup to aid interpretation of text" In what sense do any of the recommendations under this guideline supplement markup?

Resolutions and Actions

"Clarify natural language usage."

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

URIs for references

Issue raised by: Misha Wolf - 10 Mar 1999

Issue

Do we freeze the references to point to the "current" version of each document at the time of the publication of the guidelines, OR do we point to *the latest* version of each document by pointing to a non-date specific URI?

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

LINK types

Issue raised by: Tim Berners-Lee (and others)

Request

Highlight link types (e.g., LINK rel="next") in section on using metadata.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Off-line reading techniques

Issue raised by: Misha Wolf - 10 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. Clarify rationale.
  2. Clarify checkpoint wording along the lines of Al's suggestion to make the checkpoint more general as well as moving some of the info to the Techniques document.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Additional natural language issues?

Issue raised by: Warner ten Kate - 11 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. Are there other natural language issues that have not been covered?
  2. Are there other cases where natural language should be identified? (ala Warner ten Kate's message on captioning language)?

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Section numbering

Issue raised by: Several people, including Warner ten Kate - 11 Mar 1999

Issue

I found the section indexing "A", "B", "C" confusing. I would number the sections and call the first appendix "A".

Resolutions and Actions

Appendixes will be A, B, C. Otherwise numbers will be used.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Consistent use of double priority

Issue raised by: Ian

Issue

Many checkpoints have a higher priority if the information being presented by the element in question is "important" i.e., necessary to understand or use the page. However, the guidelines currently do not handle this consistently.

Proposal

Proposed: Use the checkpoint 10.1 text as the model - "Priority 1 if information or functionality is important and not presented elsewhere, otherwise Priority 2.]

Note. This may not work in all cases, for example, when the checkpoint only applies when the information is important. Thus, without important, it becomes a "Priority 0" and the split would be awkward.

Resolutions and Actions

Proposal dropped by Ian.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Statement of audience

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 13 Mar 1999

Issue

Who is the intended audience for this document and how do we state that in the intro?

Proposals: The intended audience could be indicated: not in a way which excludes those with less knowledge, but indicates the expected level of knowledge and experience. Also it could be acknowledged that authoring tools may not yet support the implementation of some tags, and state that the WAI is working on that.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved: No statement will be added.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Information about assistive technologies

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 13 Mar 1999

Issue

  1. More information is needed about assistive technologies, how users interact with them, what they can and cannot do, how users and ATs will interact with new elements.
  2. Statistics on the percentage of the population who are disabled could be included.
  3. It seems that more information of this type would help authors understand the purpose of the Guidelines and the utility of the new elements.

Proposals

  1. Proposals: Include definitions, examples, and other information either within the body of the Guidelines, or in the Definitions Appendix.
  2. Create a separate document and submit as a note to the W3C.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Clarity of link destination

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 13 Mar 1999 and Tim Berners-Lee

Issue

  1. Chetz's test participants had difficulties with re-finding sections or references to sections, including the ability to keep track of which document was being viewed. When Participants followed a link from the Guidelines to the Techniques they did not seem to be aware that they had moved into a different document; the transition was almost too seamless.  Participants were observed to follow a link to the Techniques and then scroll up to try to return to the link they had followed, as if they were still viewing the same document.
  2. Tim identified (more or less) four classes of links in the document: a) Links to the techniques document b) Links to the glossary (e.g., for "best efforts", "important", etc.) c) Cross references within the Guidelines document d) Links to the references section. Each type of link should be identifiable to the reader.

Proposals

  1. Could the section numbers indicate the current document, such as G1.1 or T2.2? 
  2. Is there a way in which the numbering could match across the documents, for example, could G1.1 relate to T1.1? Unfortunately, since the Techniques document and the Guidelines document are organized differently (Guidelines by issue, Techniques by issues then HTML topics) i don't think we will be able to synch them up as suggested.
  3. <link> Techniques for providing text alternatives for images.
  4. definition of important, <link> examples of long descriptions for imagemaps, <link> further information on long descriptions, etc.

Resolutions and Actions

March 16 version of guidelines addresses these concerns (though with a few leftover links to be fixed.

Support for new elements and attributes

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 13 Mar 1999

Issues

  1. New elements and attributes are not supported in all HTML4 references.
  2. Designers are unsure how future browsers will support new elements and attributes and therefore may be reluctant to use.

Proposals

  1. Include additional information in the techniques document about how to use the new elements and attributes.
  2. Discuss how future browser may implement the new language features.
  3. Link to the UA working group guideline discussions of how they would like to see the new features implemented.

Resolutions and Actions

Aside from links to WAI Web site, considered out of scope.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Interim support for table header info

Issue raised by: Chetz Colwell - 16 Mar 1999

Issues

  1. Checkpoint 7.4 talks about using markup to associate data cells and header cells. However, UAs don't yet support this markup. What should be done in the meantime? Should there be something in the guidelines or rather techniques on this?

Proposals

Chetz writes:

I seem to remember that there used to be a Technique of using P or BR in table cells to to make tables easier (if not accessible) for screen readers.

Resolutions and Actions

Resolved: No change in guidelines since old legacy problem only.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.

Proposal that background/foreground be specified together to ensure contrast

Issue raised by: Tomas Valusek - 18 Mar 1999

Issues

Resolutions and Actions

This is technique information.

Resolved in 22 March teleconference.