- Accessibility (Also: Accessible)
- Within these guidelines, "accessible Web content" and "accessible
authoring tool" mean that the content and tool can be used by people
regardless of disability.
- To understand the accessibility issues relevant to authoring tool
design, consider that many authors may be creating content in contexts
very different from your own:
- They may not be able to see, hear, move, or may not be able to
process some types of information easily or at all;
- They may have difficulty reading or comprehending text;
- They may not have or be able to use a keyboard or mouse;
- They may have a text-only display, or a small screen.
- Accessible design will benefit people in these different authoring
scenarios and also many people who do not have a physical disability
but who have similar needs. For example, someone may be working in a
noisy environment and thus require an alternative representation of
audio information. Similarly, someone may be working in an eyes-busy
environment and thus require an audio equivalent to information they
cannot view. Users of small mobile devices (with small screens, no
keyboard, and no mouse) have similar functional needs as some users
with disabilities.
- Accessibility Awareness
- An "accessibility-aware" application is one that
has been designed to account for authors' differing needs, abilities,
and technologies. In the case of authoring tools, this means that (1)
care has been taken to ensure that the content produced by user-authors
is accessible and (2) that the user interface has been designed to be
usable with a variety of display and control technologies.
- Accessibility
Information
- "Accessibility information" is content, including information and
markup, that is used to improve the accessibility of a document.
Accessibility information includes, but is not limited to, equivalent alternative information.
- Accessibility Problem
(Also: Inaccessible Markup)
- Inaccessible Web content or authoring tools cannot be used by some
people with disabilities. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
[WCAG10]
describes how to create accessible Web content.
- Accessible Authoring
Practice
- "Accessible authoring practices" improve the accessibility of Web
content. Both authors and tools engage in accessible authoring
practices. For example, authors write clearly, structure their content,
and provide navigation aids. Tools automatically generate valid markup
and assist authors in providing and managing appropriate equivalent
alternatives.
- Alert
- An "alert" draws the author's attention to an event or situation. It
may require a response from the author. An
alert warns the author that there are problems that need to be
addressed. Attracting the author's attention artfully can be
challenging, since author perceptions of alerts, prompts, and warnings
can influence opinions of the tool and even of accessible
authoring.
- An Unintrusive Alert is an
alert such as an icon, underlining, or gentle sound that can be
presented to the author without necessitating immediate action. For
example, in some word processors misspelled text is highlighted without
forcing the author to make immediate corrections. These alerts allow
authors to continue editing with the knowledge that problems will be
easy to identify at a later time. However, authors may become annoyed
at the extra formatting or may choose to ignore the alerts
altogether.
- An Interruptive Alert is an
informative message that interrupts the editing process for the author.
For example, interruptive alerts are often presented when an author's
action could cause a loss of data. Interruptive alerts allow problems
to be brought to the author's attention immediately. However, authors
may resent the constant delays and forced actions. Many people prefer
to finish expressing an idea before returning to edit its format.
- Alternative
Information (Also: Equivalent
Alternative)
- Content is "equivalent" to other content when both fulfill essentially
the same function or purpose upon presentation to the user. Equivalent alternatives
play an important role in accessible authoring practices since certain types
of content may not be accessible to all users (e.g., video, images, audio,
etc.). Authors are encouraged to provide text equivalents for non-text content
since text may be rendered as synthesized speech for individuals who have
visual or learning disabilities, as Braille for individuals who are blind,
or as graphical text for individuals who are deaf or do not have a disability.
For more information about equivalent alternatives, please refer to the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 1.0 [WCAG10].
- Text equivalents for still images can be short
("Site Map Link") or long (e.g., "Figure 4 shows that the population of
bacteria doubled approximately every twenty hours over the first one
hundred hours, increasing from about 1000 per milliliter to about
32,000 per milliliter."). Text equivalents for audio clips are called
"text transcripts". Captions are essential text equivalents
for movie audio. Another essential text equivalent for a movie is a "collated
text transcript." An essential non-text equivalent for
movies is "auditory description" of the key
graphical elements of a presentation.
- Attribute
- This document uses the term "attribute" as used in SGML and XML ([XML]): Element
types may be defined as having any number of attributes. Some
attributes are integral to the accessibility of content (e.g., the
"alt", "title", and "longdesc"
attributes in HTML).
- In the following example, the attributes of the
beverage
element type are "flavor", which has the value "lots", and
"color", which has the value "red":
<beverage flavor="lots" color="red">my favorite</beverage>
- Auditory
Description
- An "auditory description" provides information about actions, body language,
graphics, and scene changes in a video. Auditory descriptions are commonly
used by people who are blind or have low vision, although they may also
be used as a low-bandwidth equivalent on the Web. An auditory description
is either a prerecorded human voice or a synthesized voice (recorded or
automatically generated in real time). The auditory description must be
synchronized with the auditory track of a video presentation, usually during
natural pauses in the auditory track.
- Authoring
Tool
- An "authoring tool" is any software that is used to produce content
for publishing on the Web. Authoring tools include:
- Editing tools specifically designed to produce Web content (e.g.,
WYSIWYG HTML and XML editors);
- Tools that offer the option of saving material in a Web format
(e.g., word processors or desktop publishing packages);
- Tools that transform documents into Web formats (e.g., filters to
transform desktop publishing formats to HTML);
- Tools that produce multimedia, especially where it is intended
for use on the Web (e.g., video production and editing suites, SMIL
authoring packages);
- Tools for site management or site publication, including tools
that automatically generate Web sites dynamically from a database,
on-the-fly conversion and Web site publishing tools;
- Tools for management of layout (e.g., CSS formatting tools).
- Automated Markup Insertion
Function
- "Automated markup insertion functions" are the
features of an authoring tool that allow the author to produce markup
without directly typing it. This includes a wide range of tools from
simple markup insertion aids (such as a bold button on a toolbar) to
markup managers (such as table makers that include powerful tools such
as "split cells" that can make multiple changes) to high level site
building wizards that produce almost complete documents on the basis of
a series of author preferences.
- Captions
- "Captions" are essential text equivalents for movie audio.
Captions consist of a text
transcript of the auditory track of the movie (or other
video presentation) that is synchronized with the video and auditory
tracks. Captions are generally rendered graphically and benefit people
who can see but are deaf, hard-of-hearing, or cannot hear the
audio.
- Conversion Tool
- A "conversion tool" is any application or application feature (e.g.,
"Save as HTML") that transforms convent in one format to another format
(such as a markup language).
- Check
for
- As used in checkpoint 4.1, "check for" can refer to three types
of checking:
- In some instances, an authoring tool will be able to check for
accessibility problems automatically. For example, checking for
validity (checkpoint 2.2) or testing whether an image is
the only content of a link.
- In some cases, the tool will be able to "suspect" or "guess" that
there is a problem, but will need confirmation from the author. For
example, in making sure that a sensible reading order is preserved
a tool can present a linearized version of a page to the
author.
- In some cases, a tool must rely mostly on the author, and can
only ask the author to check. For example, the tool may prompt the
author to verify that equivalent alternatives for multimedia are
appropriate. This is the minimal standard to be satisfied. Subtle,
rather than extensive, prompting is more likely to be effective in
encouraging the author to verify accessibility where it cannot be
done automatically.
- Current User Selection
- When several views coexist, each may have a selection, but only one is active, called
the "current user selection." User selections may be rendered specially
(e.g., graphically highlighted).
- Description Link (D-link)
- A "description link", or D-Link, is an
author-supplied link to additional information about a piece of content
that might otherwise be difficult to access (image, applet, video,
etc.).
- Document
- A "document" is a series of elements that are defined by a markup
language (e.g., HTML 4 or an XML application).
- Editing an
element
- "Editing an element" involves making changes to
one or more of an element's attributes or properties. This applies to
all editing, including, but not limited to, direct coding in a text
editing mode, making changes to a property dialog or direct User
Interface manipulation.
- Editing
View
- An "editing view" is a view
provided by the authoring tool that allows editing.
- Element
- An "element" is any identifiable object within a document, for
example, a character, word, image, paragraph or spreadsheet cell. In [HTML4] and
[XML], an
element refers to a pair of tags and their content, or an "empty" tag -
one that requires no closing tag or content.
- Focus
- The "focus" designates the active element (e.g.,
link, form control, element with associated scripts, etc.) in a view
that will react when the user next interacts with the document.
- Generation Tool
- A "generation tool" is a program or script that
produces automatic markup "on the fly" by following a template or set
of rules. The generation may be performed on either the server or
client side.
- Image Editor
- An image editor is a graphics program that
provides a variety of options for altering images of different
formats.
- Inform
- To "inform" is to make the author aware of an event or situation
through alert, prompt, sound, flash, or other
means.
- Inserting an element
- "Inserting an element" involves placing that
element's markup within the markup of the file. This applies to all
insertions, including, but not limited to, direct coding in a text
editing mode, choosing an automated insertion from a pull-down menu or
tool bar button, "drag-and-drop" style insertions, or "paste"
operations.
- Markup
Language
- Authors encode information using a "markup language" such as HTML [HTML4], SVG
[SVG], or
MathML [MATHML].
- Multimedia Authoring
Tool
- A "multimedia authoring tool" is software that facilitates
integration of diverse media elements into an comprehensive presentation
format. Multimedia includes video, audio, images, animation, simulations,
and other interactive components.
- Presentation Markup
- "Presentation markup" is markup language that encodes
information about the desired presentation or layout of the content.
For example, Cascading Style Sheets ([CSS1], [CSS2]) can be used to control
fonts, colors, aural rendering, and graphical positioning. Presentation
markup should not be used in place of structural markup to convey structure.
For example, authors should mark up lists in HTML with proper list
markup and style them with CSS (e.g., to control spacing, bullets,
numbering, etc.). Authors should not use other CSS or HTML incorrectly
to lay out content graphically so that it resembles a list.
- Prompt
- A "prompt" is a request for author input, either information or a
decision. For example, a text equivalent entry field prominently
displayed in an image insertion dialog would constitute a prompt. In
this document prompt does not refer to the narrow software sense of a
"prompt," rather it is used as a verb meaning to urge, suggest and
encourage. The form and timing that this prompting takes can be user
configurable. "Prompting" does not depend upon the author to seek out
the support but is initiated by the tool. "Prompting" is more than
checking, correcting, and providing help and documentation as
encompassed in guidelines 4, 5, 6. The goal of prompting the author is
to encourage, urge and support the author in creating meaningful
equivalent text without causing frustration that may cause the author
to turn off access options. Prompting should be implemented in such a
way that it causes a positive disposition and awareness on the part of
the author toward accessible authoring practices.
- Property
- A "property" is a piece of information about an element, for example
structural information (e.g., it is item number 7 in a list, or plain
text) or presentation information (e.g., that it is marked as bold, its
font size is 14). In XML and HTML, properties of an element include the
type of the element (e.g.,
IMG or DL), the
values of its attributes, and information associated
by means of a style sheet. In a database, properties of a particular
element may include values of the entry, and acceptable data types for
that entry.
- Publishing Tool
- A "publishing tool" is software that allows
content to be uploaded in an integrated fashion. Sometimes these tools
makes changes such as local hyper-reference modifications. Although
these tools sometimes stand alone, they may also be integrated into
site management tools.
- Rendered Content
- The "rendered content" of an element is that which
the element actually causes to be rendered by the user agent. This may
differ from the element's structural content. For example, some
elements cause external data to be rendered (e.g., the
IMG
element in [HTML4]), and in some cases,
browsers may render the value of an attribute (e.g.,
"alt", "title") in place of the element's
content.
- Rendered View, Preview
- A "rendered view" simulates for the author how a
user will interact with the content being edited once published.
- Selection
- A "selection" is a set of elements identified for
a particular operation. The user selection identifies a set of elements
for certain types of user interaction (e.g., cut, copy, and paste
operations). The user selection may be established by the user (e.g.,
by a pointing device or the keyboard) or via an accessibility
Application Programmatic Interface (API). A view may have several
selections, but only one user selection.
- Site Management Tool
- A "site management tool" provides an overview of
an entire Web site indicating hierarchical structure. It will
facilitate management through functions that may include automatic
index creation, automatic link updating, and broken link checking.
- Structural Markup
- "Structural markup" is markup
language that encodes information about the structural role
of elements of the content. For example, headings, sections, members of
a list, and components of a complex diagram can be identified using
structural markup. Structural markup should not be used incorrectly to
control presentation or layout. For example, authors should not use the
BLOCKQUOTE element in HTML [HTML4] to achieve an indentation
visual layout effect. Structural markup should be used correctly to
communicate the roles of the elements of the content and presentation markup should be used
separately to control the presentation and layout.
- Transcript
- A "transcript" is a text representation of sounds in an audio clip or
an auditory track of a multimedia presentation. A "collated text transcript"
for a video combines (collates) caption text with text descriptions of video
information (descriptions of the actions, body language, graphics, and scene
changes of the visual track). Collated text transcripts are essential for
individuals who are deaf-blind and rely on Braille for access to movies
and other content.
- Transformation
- A "transformation" is a process that changes a document or object
into another, equivalent, object according to a discrete set of rules.
This includes conversion tools, software that allows
the author to change the DTD defined for the original
document to another DTD,
and the ability to change the markup of lists and convert them into
tables.
- User
Agent
- A "user agent" is software that retrieves and renders Web content.
User agents include browsers, plug-ins for a particular media type, and
some assistive technologies.
- User-Configurable
Schedule
- A "user-configurable schedule" allows the user to
determine the type of prompts and alerts that are used, including when
they are presented. For example, a user may wish to include multiple
images without being prompted for alternative information, and then
provide the alternative information in a batch process, or may wish to
be reminded each time they add an image. If the prompting is done on a
user-configurable schedule they will be able to make that decision
themselves. This technique allows a tool to suit the needs a wide range
of authors.
- Video Editor
- A "video editor" is software for manipulating
video images. Video editing includes cutting segments (trimming),
re-sequencing clips, and adding transitions and other special
effects.
- View
- Authoring tools may render the same content in a variety of ways;
each rendering is called a "view." Some authoring tools will have
several different types of view, and some allow views of several
documents at once. For instance, one view may show raw markup, a second
may show a structured tree, a third may show markup with rendered
objects while a final view shows an example of how the document may
appear if it were to be rendered by a particular browser. A typical way
to distinguish views in a graphic environment is to place each in a
separate window.
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