For presentations only? from Ian Jacobs on 2001-01-23 (w3c-wai-ua@w3.org from January to March 2001) (original) (raw)

Hello,

In the 16 Jan 2001 version of the Guidelines [1], checkpoint 2.2 reads:

2.2 For a presentation that requires user input within 
    a specified time interval controlled by the user agent, 
    allow the user to configure the user agent to pause
    the presentation automatically and await user input 
    before proceeding.

I am working on an action item with Eric to improve the definition of "presentation". In reviewing checkpoint 2.2, I had the following ideas.

I feel like checkpoint 2.2 may be unnecessarily bound to the term "presentation":

We don't have a rock-solid definition of "presentation" Right now, the definition suggests synchronized multimedia.
I believe that this checkpoint covers more than just synchronized multimedia presentations.

Checkpoint 2.2 is clearly about content that depends on time. This implies that that there may be different user interactions possible over the course of time, and the checkpoint should be sure to allow that (notably for consistency with checkpoint 2.5 to respect synchronization cues). A user agent should not satisfy checkpoint 2.2 by removing all time-dependencies; it should only satisfy checkpoint 2.2 by pausing when user input is required and resuming thereafter. Thus, content might evolve for one minute, then pause indefinitely for user interaction, then resume another minute, then pause indefinitely, etc.

Please consider this rewrite (that includes a couple of other simplifications as well) to take into account these two points:

2.2 For content that requires user input within a time interval controlled by the user agent, allow configuration to make the time interval "infinite" (i.e., pause automatically at the beginning of each time interval where user input is required, and resume automatically at the completion of user input).

[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/WD-UAAG10-20010116/

Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org) http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs Tel: +1 831 457-2842 Cell: +1 917 450-8783

Received on Tuesday, 23 January 2001 13🔞51 UTC