ISSUE-279: 4.3.3 Provide Disclosures that are Timely and Accessible

adam

4.3.3 Provide Disclosures that are Timely and Accessible

State:

CLOSED

Product:

Mobile Web Applications Best Practices

Raised by:

Adam Connors

Opened on:

2008-09-18

Description:

The earlier version (20080522) had guidance on how and when disclosures should be provided, in "4.3.3 Provide Disclosures that are Timely and Accessible":

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4.3.3 Provide Disclosures that are Timely and Accessible

4.3.3.1 What it means

Disclosures about application behavior are useful (i.e. result in user awareness of the implications of using an application) only if they are provided at a useful time and in useful ways.

4.3.3.2 How to do it

Disclosures should be provided during application selection/loading or first use of sensitive functions.

Disclosures should be automatically provided e.g. as a user dialog, or easily accessible to the user e.g. via an "about this application" menu option.

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This guidance is important since developers need to know that they have options as to how/when to provide the disclosures. The nature of the application and the types of information/behaviors it uses will affect how/when disclosures are provided. For example, applications that do not use any API's that will result in real-time prompts should inform the user when the application starts or on first use of the sensitive function. Prompt on application startup is also useful if prompts during execution would interfere with operation of the application, or be not possible (e.g. the application doesn't provide a UI during operation).

We can add text on the API-provided prompts to this section as well, as one type of "timely" disclosure, to increase the value of the section (if that was the concern prompting its removal).


->-> The intent here was that timely and accessible was different for PIM vs network access and so this section was absorbed into the previous two sections. The goal was to maintain the message without having an explicit BP.

->-> re: 4.3.3.2 ---> I find it hard to put this in terms that are not either misleading or too vague as to be useful. You wouldn't want a web-application to raise a dialogue to tell you it is about to make a network connection (this should be done by the browser or widget container). For PIM data, I have never seen a PIM API that doesn't raise a native dialogue...

->-> Application selection / loading aren't really relevant in web-application context. "First-use" or "on start-up" may be better.

Related Actions Items:

• ACTION-861 on Bryan Sullivan to Propose text ref ISSUE-279 - due 2008-10-15, closed

Related emails:

1. [minutes] Tuesday 7 July 2009 teleconf (from fd@w3.org on 2009-07-07)
2. [minutes] BPWG 2008-11-13 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-11-13)
3. [minutes] BPWG Teleconference 2008-10-09 (from fd@w3.org on 2008-10-09)
4. [Minutes] Minutes from the MWABP Editorial Meeting 2008-09-26 (from jrabin@mtld.mobi on 2008-09-26)
5. ISSUE-279 (adam): 4.3.3 Provide Disclosures that are Timely and Accessible [Mobile Web Applications Best Practices] (from sysbot+tracker@w3.org on 2008-09-18)

Related notes:

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