- From: WCAG 2.0 Comment Form <nobody@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 10:00:40 +0000 (GMT)
- To: public-comments-wcag20@w3.org
- Message-Id: <20060509100040.1E827BDA8@w3c4.w3.org>
Name: Jason White Email: jasonw@ariel.its.unimelb.edu.au Affiliation: none Document: W2 Item Number: Support compatibility with current and future user agents (including assistive technologies) Part of Item: Comment Type: TE Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change): This guideline doesn\'t require the use of technologies, for example markup languages, in accordance with the semantics defined in specifications. Assistive technologies such as braille translators, as well as content transformation tools, rely upon the assumption that elements and attributes of markup languages are used to convey the meanings prescribed in specifications. To the extent that content departs from this requirement, programmatic determination of structural and other aspects of content is precluded, being reduced instead to a probabilistic matter requiring heuristics to be introduced by the software developer. Although the definition of \"programmatically determined\" refers to support by user agents, it doesn\'t explicitly refer to standards governing the technologies used in the content. Proposed Change: Add a requirement under this guideline to the effect that, for each technology in the baseline that is defined in a specification, every feature of the technology is used in conformity with the meaning and purpose prescribed in the specification. Even better, require it to be used in accordance with the meaning, purpose and syntax prescribed in the specification. Alternatively, if the above is too strong a requirement, restrict it at level 1 to every feature used to enable the structure, purpose or meaning of the content to be programmatically determined. That is, if the feature is used to enable programmatic determination for purposes of meeting the guidelines, then it must be used in accordance with the syntax and semantics defined in the specification governing the technology. This falls short of a requirement of full syntactic and semantic correctness, but the stronger requirement could be added at level 2 or level 3.
Received on Tuesday, 9 May 2006 10:00:51 UTC