Thread Subject: Re: 7-C Prompts (in authoring tools)

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From: Judy Brewer
Date: Tue, Feb 26 2008 1:20 PM

Hi Andrew,

Comments below.

At 11:55 AM 2/26/2008 -0800, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
>Judy,
>Some comments:
>
> > The proposed version from Sean, Jan 9, states:
> > "Authoring tools with a user interface must procured and operated
> > such that they provide, either alone or with additional tools, a mode
> > which prompts authors to create accessible content."
>
>I'm not sure that we're gaining anything by mandating that tools are
>operated with prompting active - it is not likely enforceable, and to
>the extent that it is enforceable it is entirely redundant to the
>web/software standards.

I'm not sure how you arrive at "mandating that tools are operated
with prompting active." It states "a mode which prompts". I had not
looked closely at Sean's wording because of my greater concerns about
the unclarity of what is available in a given package vs what
available among the universe of authoring tools. But does your
concern stem from Sean's phrasing of "procured and operated..."? My
understanding is that "a mode which..." would overdetermine that by
making the prompting just one among a variety of modes or
configurations. But perhaps it is just too confusing having both
there, in which case I would tend to remove the "and operated with"
since I think that the agency and/or user choice of selecting whether
the prompting mode is active or not is important to maintain.

>This is my preference, apart from the above concern.
>
> > The version from Judy, Jan 9, states:
> > "Authoring tools with a user interface, to the extent they provide a
> > prompting framework, must provide a mode which prompts authors to
> > create accessible content."
>
>Judy, what do you mean by a prompting framework? If the app prompts for
>other things it should prompt for accessibility?

Yes, that is what I meant, that if they provided any prompting
framework then they should also include prompting for accessibility
content, but that if they provided no prompting framework then they
would not need to. However, I had described some further concerns in
my original message on this today as I looked at additional scenarios
for what that might mean. I list those concerns again here (and then
after that I respond to your question about Peter's proposal):

From my earlier message:

>>With regard to my own proposal above, in retrospect I am concerned
>>about the phrase: "to the extent that they provide a prompting
>>framework" since it seems that an incentive is needed to provide
>>prompting during authoring, and phrasing it this way seems that it
>>might actually create a disincentive.
>>
>>Additional comments welcome on this; as currently worded, I would be
>>inclined to support only the wording in the current draft, which is:
>> "Authoring tools with a user interface must provide a mode which
>>prompts authors to create accessible content."
>>
>>Is this related to the additional comment from Jan 9 that apparently
>>needed more attention:
>> "Attempt to address "framework" tools, while staying out of
>>procurement of the dangerous "bundling" territory."
>>If so, can someone give an example of how to use a "framework"
>>approach here, and what was the danger to avoid with a "bundling" approach?


And then replying on your comment about Peter's proposal:

> > The version from Peter, Jan 9, states:
> > "An authoring tool, or suite of authoring tools used to author
> > content, where that suite provides a user interface, must provide a
> > mode which prompts authors to create accessible content."
>
>This also raises a concern that is avoided in Sean's, which is that
>sometimes 3rd party tools provide this function. I see this on the wiki
>but not in your email.

Hmmm, was my email truncated? It looks to me as though it all came
through on the mailing list... I did list Peter's proposal in my
email -- or is this not what you mean by the "this" that is on the
wiki but not in my email?

In any case, that is an interesting comment. Can't a suite of tools
include third party tools as well? I'm not sure that I understand
your concern about Peter's proposal. Could you please say more?

- Judy


>AWK
>

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