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Thread: WAVE 3.0 alpha

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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Fri, Dec 06 2002 6:50PM
Subject: WAVE 3.0 alpha
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Although it is still very much a work in progress, I'd like to make the
WAVE 3.0 alpha available to the public.

You can find it at www.wave.webaim.org.

WebAIM has continued development the WAVE project which Len Kasday
started at Pennsylvania's Initiative on Assistive Technology (PIAT), at
The Institute on Disabilities, Temple University.

Not all of the planned enhancements are functional yet, but I think you
will be pleased with the many that are. It's a great tool for checking
your web sites for accessibility problems.

For those who have never used the WAVE before, it has a slightly
different philosophy than some of the other tools out there. It doesn't
give you a list of errors. It displays icons in the contetxt of the page
itself which show you where various elements are in the page, such as
layout tables, image alt text, form labels and so on. Not all of the
icons represent errors. In fact, icons are placed in the document in the
places where you did things right too. This allows you to evaluate the
effectiveness of your work in the context of the page itself. For
example, the WAVE prints out your alt text right next to the image. This
allows you to judge whether the alt text is appropriate for the image.

But perhaps it would just be easier to explain if you took a look for
yourself, so I invite you to do just that.

You may want to read "What's New in WAVE 3.0 Alpha?" at
http://www.wave.webaim.org/new_in_3_0.htm. We haven't yet completed our
documentation, but this will give you an idea of many of the changes
implemented so far.

See also the explanation of icons at
http://www.wave.webaim.org:8081/wave/explanation.htm (this also is a
work in progress)

We invite your feedback, comments, bug reports and ideas on all aspects
of the project.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu


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From: Ineke van der Maat
Date: Fri, Dec 06 2002 7:36PM
Subject: Re: WAVE 3.0 alpha
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Hello Paul,

Wave 3.0 complains that my input type (an image) in a form is missing
the alt text, but this has name, id, title, value and alt. Just as Jukka
Korpula adviced on the WAI-list and Joe Clark writes in his book
(example page 290). May this be a bug? It shows id="senden" but my alt
text has "senden" too.

WAVE does not see other errors in my page..


Greetings
Ineke van der Maat



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From: Holly Marie
Date: Sat, Dec 07 2002 9:00AM
Subject: Re: WAVE 3.0 alpha
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Bohman"

| Although it is still very much a work in progress, I'd like to make
the
| WAVE 3.0 alpha available to the public.
|
| You can find it at www.wave.webaim.org.
| For those who have never used the WAVE before, it has a slightly
| different philosophy than some of the other tools out there. It
doesn't
| give you a list of errors. It displays icons in the contetxt of the
page
| itself which show you where various elements are in the page, such as
| layout tables, image alt text, form labels and so on. Not all of the
| icons represent errors. In fact, icons are placed in the document in
the
| places where you did things right too. This allows you to evaluate the
| effectiveness of your work in the context of the page itself. For
| example, the WAVE prints out your alt text right next to the image.
This
| allows you to judge whether the alt text is appropriate for the image.
|
| But perhaps it would just be easier to explain if you took a look for
| yourself, so I invite you to do just that.
|
| You may want to read "What's New in WAVE 3.0 Alpha?" at
| http://www.wave.webaim.org/new_in_3_0.htm. We haven't yet completed
our
| documentation, but this will give you an idea of many of the changes
| implemented so far.
|
| See also the explanation of icons at
| http://www.wave.webaim.org:8081/wave/explanation.htm (this also is a
| work in progress)
|
| We invite your feedback, comments, bug reports and ideas on all
aspects
| of the project.


Hi Paul,

This is exciting to see the work done on the WAVE and the increased
features for the check or testing.
I popped this off to someone who is also blind, and naturally their
question was directed at how effiecient or usable it might be for these
users working on the Internet or Web, or I imagine even those who work
in web design and development.

So, I popped the WAVE link into Opera, turned off all the images and
style[I do not have a lynx browser on my desktop right now] and ran a
test on a page with forms set in tables. The text only delivery seems
fine for the WAVE and it led me to another thought or idea, a possible
suggestion....

This tool is nice in how it linearizes page content and identifies
semantic markup. It is also nice how it identifies other items [bold,
emphasis, points out things that may show in the page like javascript,
etc...].

I wonder how hard it might be to offer up a quick link switch for those
that would like to use this test or check in text only or no CSS or
Image mode? It may be nice to offer this ability for those that may be
overly distracted by many images or colors? [ADD, LDD, other possible
attention situations, or pure choice]

I think that option might be a good one... Two ways to view this check
or test?

One other thought, and this is hard because color is an issue with those
having various types of color blindness. I am wondering if there was any
distinguishable way to make errors more outstanding than other items.
Again it is a stuggle to come up with a good way. If you X through a
box, someone may not be able to read the box or see the image clearly.
Maybe an X by something that needs to be fixed, Checkmark is ambiguous,
could mean check this item closer or good this is done... Star may mean
good, but I see we run into some clear understandings on non color based
symbology with Good, Needs Checking, or Error.

holly

holly



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From: Paul Bohman
Date: Wed, Dec 11 2002 1:30PM
Subject: RE: WAVE 3.0 alpha
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Since making the WAVE 3.0 alpha public, I have received quite a bit of
feedback, which I greatly appreciate. Not all of the feedback was sent
to me via this list. In most cases, I responded personally to the people
who gave the feedback.

The WAVE 3.0 project is still in an early stage of development, with
many aspects not yet ready for public release, but I was very interested
in allowing others to have access to the project, even in the early
stages, to ensure that we receive sufficient feedback during the course
of development. I feel that this is key to delivering a quality product.
So keep the feedback coming! (whether to this list, to me personally, or
via the feedback form on the wave home page www.wave.webaim.org)

Just as a note: we have not yet had the chance to incorporate every
piece of advice we have received, so if your suggestions do not appear
in the software yet, don't think that we've discarded them. It just
takes time to put it all together.

Paul Bohman
Technology Coordinator
WebAIM (Web Accessibility in Mind)
www.webaim.org
Center for Persons with Disabilities
www.cpd.usu.edu
Utah State University
www.usu.edu


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