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Re: Microsoft needs to know

for

From: Kynn Bartlett
Date: Jan 20, 2002 11:46AM

At 8:17 AM -0800 1/19/02, Chris wrote:
>Hello Chris,
>
>Thank you for writing to Microsoft bCentral about the LE HTML code.
>
>We apologize for the delay in sending a response to your concern.
>
>I have visited your site and I have learned that the LE HTML code is working
>perfectly well on your pages. You should not be encountering any problem
>with the code because it is designed in the sense that it won't affect the
>accessibility of a certain site. Banners are displayed essentially at random
>on any of our members pages; this is why the code doesn't have a reference
>HTML file.
>
>If you are still having problems with the code, you may write us back so we
>could further investigate your issue. Please let us know exactly what you
>did step-by-step, and where the process failed. Please also confirm if the
>term "w3c", which you mentioned, refers to the "World Wide Web Consortium".
>Please make to include the exact error message that you received. We would
>also appreciate it if you could tell us more about "Bobby" and "A-Prompt"
>programs. But please be reminded that we can't give you a special LE code
>since we don't alter our code.

This is why it's important to provide complete information to those
to whom you write -- don't assume that the person who answers the
email (usually a low ranking tech support person) knows anything
more than the minimal of what he or she was taught to handle simple
requests. What he or she was taught is based on something that was
written in scripts by a tech writer. In very few cases will you
ever be writing directly to a programmer, and even then the programmer
won't necessarily know what you're talking about.

What the tech support people are looking for -- as shown by the
questions above -- is a "reproducable error." There's no reproducable
error here, really, so they don't have a good answer for you. A
better solution is to tell them what the problem is, complete with
URL references to everything (A-Prompt, Bobby), explain why it's a
problem, and propose a solution and ask them to pass it on to the
developer. Reference to Microsoft resources will probably help in
this case, too; in general, it's hard to convince tech support
people that they're somehow responsible for an error message
generated by Bobby or A-Prompt, things they've never heard of.

Also, you need to be pretty accurate in your terminology and avoid
the use of "web accessibility" slang and lingo -- look at the
question about "w3c". Your original text said "w3c priority 1
errors", but that's not actually the correct way to refer to those
types of errors. You and I can understand it, but those of us on
this list have to be considered an "insider" audience and thus are
"hip to the lingo." A more accurate way to refer to this is,
"Priority 1 checkpoint violations according to the World Wide
Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/)." A mouthful, yes, but the chances
you're writing to anyone who has ever HEARD of WCAG are quite slim
indeed. Tech support people aren't hired for their knowledge of
web accessibility; and if they were experts in it, they'd probably
quit their tech support jobs and become web developers. ;)

--Kynn

--
Kynn Bartlett < <EMAIL REMOVED> > http://kynn.com
Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain http://idyllmtn.com
Web Accessibility Expert-for-hire http://kynn.com/resume
January Web Accessibility eCourse http://kynn.com/+d201
Forthcoming: Teach Yourself CSS in 24 Hours


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