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Thread: Re: Education and Tools

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From: Robert Yonaitis
Date: Wed, Jan 24 2007 3:20PM
Subject: Re: Education and Tools
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Jon:

Thanks for the feedback, I tested character encoding on the tester you
mentioned and it does not fail, in fact it uses the following words:
Tentatively passed validation

So in the case of the HTTP Header it seems a warning would be more
appropriate if your developers have no way of detecting the HTTP
Headers. On your second comment, the last thing I am sure you want is to
have developers use your tool, apply for a job, and then tell someone
that to design accessible they must stop using HTTP headers and put it
all in the source! (They may not get the JOB) I sometimes feel that one
of the most important things a tool can do is educate. In this case a
tool has to be void of opinion and if an opinion is required you must
move to WARNing versus fail. However, if you feel strongly that using
HTTP headers is incorrect then you should at least document that while
HTTP Headers are widely accepted it is the opinion of the Illinois
Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator that it is better to use meta.
This way if some poor designer is at a conference they can say they
subscribe to the Tools Opinion versus some sort of standard.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to me!

Rob



-----Original Message-----
From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
[mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Jon Gunderson
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 5:00 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Cc: Nick Hoyt; Dan Linder
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Illinois Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator:
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Robert,
I am going to discuss this issue with our developers and this maybe an
area where we want to provide a warning. Our current requirement is
based on what HTML validation tools want to validate content [1,2].

I should also point out FAE [3] is designed to help people that are
looking to do accessible design, rather than accessible repair. The
tool is trying to direct people in making conscious accessible design
decisions, not to try to fix content after it has already been designed.
The result is that some of the tests will not be welcome to people who
are just trying to fix up inaccessible designs.

Jon

1. W3C HTML Validation Service
http://validator.w3.org

2. Web Design Group Validtors
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/

3. Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu

---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 08:18:40 -0500
>From: "Robert Yonaitis" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Illinois Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator:
Sign up for free user acount
>To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
>
>Jon/All,
>
>Thanks for the clarification. So since we are using phrases like "In
>General" and "the author is probably" should we not do what is done in
>tons of validation suites and say WARNing, because something could
>probably be wrong versus telling all developers to rewrite their code
>which in cases could be rewriting an application? In the case of the
>headers they are easily read and then perhaps a WARNing on that, maybe
>some text,
>
>"Warning, Character Encoding Found in the HTTP header but not in the
STATIC source and this may imply a problem might exist"
>
>This may be safer then having developers change their applications or
dynamic code or even 1000's of static pages that admittedly could be
done quickly if they decide is really required. By doing this the tool
will have more value and be a aide to the developer and consultants
doing any kind of testing.
>
>What do you think?
>
>Thanks,
>Rob
>
>