WCAG 2.0 Comment Submission

Name: Jason White
Email: jasonw@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au
Affiliation: none
Document: W2
Item Number: Success Criterion 1.3.1
Part of Item: 
Comment Type: TE
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
The expression \"conveyed through presentation\" is not defined, and therefore

open to divergent interpretations. If, for example, an implementor decided

that \"presentation\" could be construed as meaning \"auditory presentation

provided by a speech-enabled user agent\", and it turned out that very few

aspects of the structure of the content were conveyed in an auditory

presentation, then it could be concluded, contrary to the purpose of the

guidelines, that almost none of the structure need be programmatically

determinable.



I can think of two alternative ways in which the concept of \"conveyed through

presentation\" could be more precisely defined.



1. Any aspect of the information or structure that is evident from the

presentation of the content, in any modality, must be able to be

programmatically determined.



2. Any aspect of the information or structure for which the author provides

presentational hints to the user agent, must be able to be programmatically

determined. Presentational hints may include style parameters, visual

formatting (layout, font changes, etc.), audio formatting (parameters to

control a speech synthesizer) and other aspects of the content designed to

influence its presentation in one or more sensory modalities.



I think the second proposal is the more practicable solution as it doesn\'t

leave authors wondering what might be apparent in a presentational context

with which they are unfamiliar, that needs to be made programmatically

determinable.

Proposed Change:
Rewrite the success criterion, add a note to it, or rewrite the definition of

\"presentation\" to clarify the requirement in accordance with the problem

raised and the solutions suggested above, or indeed any other solution that

addresses the lack of clarity in the current text.

Received on Friday, 5 May 2006 02:00:19 UTC