Andy,

Thank you, that explanation clears a lot of things up for me that I
could not understand (second hand) about the usage board's view and I
hope will help us move forward.  I agree there is a lot of careful
wordsmithing to be done but my view that this would be best done under a
proposed element name of <accessibility> remains.  I am willing to make
my contribution towards this.

Martyn

_____________
Martyn Cooper
Head: Accessibility in Educational Media
Institute of Educational Technology
Open University, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1908 655729



-----Original Message-----
From: DCMI Accessibility Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Andy Powell
Sent: 05 August 2005 08:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: From accessibility --> adaptability


On Fri, 5 Aug 2005, M.Cooper wrote:

> IMHO the usages board's "problems" with the term accessibility are 
> unfounded.

Martyn,
Speaking only for myself (but as a member of the usage board), I just 
wanted to comment on this statement...  as far as I recall, the usage 
board did not have a problem with the term 'accessibility' per se.  I 
don't think I did anyway! Rather I had problems with the proposed 
definition of 'accessibility' because I did not think it captured the 
intended semantics of the proposed new element sufficiently well to 
differentiate it from statements about 'usability' and/or 'access 
conditions' (in the sense of access rights or access control). 
Furthermore, I had problems in understanding how the proposed new
element 
fitted into the abstract model.

It is probably fair to say that both these "problems" (understanding the

semantics and how the element fitted the abstract model) were compounded

by a lack of any real examples of how the proposed new element would be 
used in practice.

Part of the issue was also about whether the proposed element was
intended 
to be limited to 'Web' resources or whether it was intended to be used
to 
describe physical resources, such as the accessibility of buildings and 
the like.

Like you, my first reaction on seeing the proposal to rename the WG and 
new element 'adaptability' was to Google for it (specifically for
'define: 
adaptability') and, like you, I came to the conclusion that there was no

(or very little) existing usage of that term in this context.  (But I
have 
to acknowledge that other postings to this list seem to indicate 
otherwise.)

FWIW (which isn't much), my personal view is that changing to 
'adaptability' makes matters worse rather than better, since, as the
last 
poster says, being able to adapt something is only a part of the 
'accessibility' issue.  And that having an element that is sufficiently 
general to be able to say things like "No wheelchair access" is a good 
thing.

Anyway, in summary... whatever any new term in this area is called, I 
think that defining its semantics is going to be very difficult and that

this group may have to spend a lot of time effectively wordsmithing any 
new proposal in order to make it clear.  And that the clarity of any new

proposal will be significantly improved by supplying several (or more) 
examples of how the new term is intended to be used in practice. 
Otherwise it is very difficult for people outside the group to
understand 
how (or if, in the case of the UB) the new term fits into the abstract 
model.

Andy
--
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