On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:18:57AM +0200, Stefanie Ruehle wrote:
> I didn't attend the UB telco last week, 
> so I'm not sure what you discussed then. 
> But when I look at the list of qualities 
> 
> >    auditoryOnly
> >    hapticOnly 
> >    visualOnly 
> >    brailleOnly
> >    tactileOnly 
> >    olfactoryOnly 
> >    hazard 
> 
> I think we are not talking about the 
> accessibility but about the usability of
> a resource. "Usability" as name of a 
> property would make clear, that this is 
> a users point of view (and we are talking 
> about the users point of view, don't we?).

This is a good idea, though I seem to recall that sometime in
the past, "usability" may already have been proposed (and
rejected) as a alternative for "accessibility".  Can someone
fill us in here?

One problem is perhaps that "usability" is already widely used
to characterize the efficiency or elegance of a design, such as
the user interface for a Web site [1].  ISO has defined
"usability" for use in testing.

Another replacement for "accessibility" that was at one time
discussed is "adaptability".  Again, I do not know what was
argued pro and contra.

As I understand it, "accessibility" is favored in part because
"accessibility" is the banner under which the community worked
[1].  However, the Web Accessibility Initiative talks more
specifically in terms of "making the Web accessible to people
with disabilities", defining "Web accessibility" to mean "that
people with disabilities can use the Web":

     More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with
     disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and
     interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the
     Web.

I can see the connection to the proposed definition:

     A characteristic of a resource that relates to the human
     capacity to perceive, operate, understand or otherwise
     engage with the resource.

In addition to acknowledging prior work, the accessibility
proposal (and decision) should perhaps point out how the word
"accessibility" is used in WAI and how the DCMI definition
relates to that.  I am assuming the name "accessibility" was
proposed in order to make the connection to this work and this
community but if so, the text should say so explicitly.

Keep the discussion coming...!

Tom

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability
[2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/
[3] http://dublincore.org/usageboardwiki/AccessibilityProposal

-- 
Thomas Baker <[log in to unmask]>