Copyright © 2003 W3C® (MIT, ERCIM, Keio), All Rights Reserved. W3C liability, trademark, document use and software licensing rules apply.
This document provides information to authoring tool developers who wish to satisfy the checkpoints of "Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" [ATAG20]. It includes suggested techniques, sample strategies in deployed tools, and references to other accessibility resources (such as platform-specific software accessibility guidelines) that provide additional information on how a tool may satisfy each checkpoint.
This document is part of a series of accessibility documents published by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. Other documents may supersede this document. The latest status of this document series is maintained at the W3C.
This version of Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility is a draft of an informative appendix to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The Working Group intends to publish a final version of this document as a W3C Note. Note that this draft does not represent consensus within the WAI Authoring Tools (AUWG) Working Group, nor within W3C. This document is likely to change and should not be cited as anything other than "work in progress". The Working Group expects to update this document in response to queries raised by implementors of the Guidelines, for example to cover new technologies. Suggestions for additional techniques are welcome.
This document represents an attempt to make it clearer how to use the techniques for different types of tools. It begins the process of publishing the techniques as a multi-part hypertext document. It also updates the Techniques for Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [ATAG10-TECHS] for compatibility with ATAG 2.0.
This document has been produced by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The goals of the Working Group are discussed in the AUWG charter. A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents including Working Drafts and Notes can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/. The AUWG is part of the WAI Technical Activity.
The working group maintains an ATAG 2.0 Issues List and a list of patent disclosures.
Please send comments about this document to the public mailing list: w3c-wai-au@w3.org (public archives). Please note that this document may contain typographical errors. It was published as soon as possible since review of the content itself is important, although noting typographical errors is also helpful.
For information about the current activities of the working group, please refer to the AUWG home page. This page includes an explanation of the inter-relation of each document as well as minutes and previous drafts.
For further information about Working Group decisions, please consult the minutes of AUWG Meetings.
This document has been produced by the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AUWG) as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The goals of the Working Group are discussed in the AUWG charter.
Please send comments about this document to the public mailing list: w3c-wai-au@w3.org (public archives). Please note that this document may contain typographical errors. It was published as soon as possible since review of the content itself is important, although noting typographical errors is also helpful.
A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents including Working Drafts and Notes can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR.
This document has been divided into a multi-part hypertext document to keep individual pages to a manageable size. There are publishing conventions used to identify various features and parts of the document. Some of these will be used to provide multiple views of the techniques - for example implementation techniques for a particular kind of tool, or references for particular techniques. Other conventions are used to ensure that this document is compatible with ATAG version 1.0 or will be compatible with ATAG wombat with a minimum of difficulty or change.
[@@ed. should we synchronize the two categories?@@]
Note on applicability of techniques: The following techniques are applicable to all kinds of authoring tools, including those that are insertable components of other authoring tools. For example, if an authoring tool for designing on-line courses (courseware) has a prefabricated chat facility that the instructor can drag on to their page, this component must comply with all the techniques for accessible authoring interface (guideline 1) and accessible Web content output (guidelines 2-7) and .
Note: For the purposes of these techniques, authoring tools may fall into one or more of the following categories. For example, an HTML authoring tool that allows the user to create JavaScripts will fall under two categories, Markup Editing Tools and Programming Tools. A SMIL editor that includes a text-only view of the markup and a preview mode would be considered both a Markup Editing Tool and a Multimedia Creation Tool. @@This is still tentative@@
Description: Screenshot showing a text editor style editing
window with XHTML code displayed. Text within tags (including the "pointy"
brackets) has been colored blue by the tool. Other text is black.
(Source: Screenshot from Macromedia DreamWeaver MX)
Description: Screenshot showing a code editing environment
in which each operation is represented graphically as a piece of a toy constructor
set (e.g. Lego). The graphical "pieces" of code have different colors
and appearances depending on what operation they are. One of the operations
is a repeat loop and its attributes (e.g. repeat conditions) are controlled
by form elements on the "piece".The graphical "pieces" of
code can be dragged around and assembled in different orders.
(Source: Screenshot from Lego MindStorms RCX software)
Description: Screenshot showing an editor window that looks
like a browser window, with rendered text and an image of a satellite. The only
thing betraying the editability of the content is an edit cursor below the last
line.
(Source: Screenshot from Macromedia DreamWeaver MX, image from NASA.gov)
Description: Screenshot showing a grid with several overlapping
squares. One of the squares has been selected and is displayed in green. A drawing
cursor hovers nearby.
(Source: Screenshot from Microsoft Visio 2002 Professional)
Description: Screenshot showing a Web page containing a form
that a person could use to change the way a course home page is displayed. The
options include: "Change page colors", "Modify/add background
image", "Modifyicon style", "Replace individual icon",
"Hide lefthand navigation bar", "Show lefthand navigation bar",
and "Modify/add hit counter". Another section of the page lets the
user decide how to display the following: "Assignments", "Calendar",
"Discussions", "Mail", and "My Grades".
(Source: Image from WebCT.com)
Description: Screenshot showing a Web page containing a form
that a person could use to add their name, email address, homepage and comments
to another Web page.
(Source: Screenshot of "Greymatter" comment submission tool
Description: Screenshot showing a grid. The rows are separate
tracks, while the columns are frame numbers (everything in a column happens
at the same point in time). Other options shown allow the user to "add",
"remove", "hide" and "lock" tracks.
(Source: Screenshot from Macromedia Flash MX)
Description: Screenshot showing the lower portion of a "Save
as" dialog box. There is a textbox for the document name and a drop-down
menu to choose a saving format. The screenshot captures the user saving a word
processing document as an HTML Web page.
(Source: Screenshot from Microsoft Word 2000)
Contents | Guideline 1 | Guideline 2 | Guideline 3 | Guideline 4 | Glossary | References