[Irl-dean] Equal Citizens: Proposals for Core Elements of Disability Legislation

[Barry McMullin]

On Fri, 2 May 2003 bdelaney at nda.ie wrote:

> A Rich Text Version of Equal Citizens: Proposals for Core Elements of 
> Disability Legislation is now available on the NDA website at:
[...]

Hi Brenda -

Thanks for this prompt response.  I genuinely appreciate your
efforts to improve matters.

But ... rtf is at most a limited improvement.  It is admittedly a
lot smaller in download than pdf (which is good).  But as far as
that goes, plain text is smaller still and is a good deal more
portable.

The really desirable electronic version is one which is based on
open, portable, standards, and provides high quality structural
markup.  That generally means HTML - but only if the HTML has
been authored properly (whether directly, or indirectly through
transformation or high level authoring tools).  So, in the case
in question, it would be HTML which is valid, uses appropriate
structural markup for headings etc. and has appropriate hypertext
links - especially for navigation within the document (from TOC
to sections; and from text to notes and back).  rtf provides none
of that.

The NDA guidelines (derived, of course, from the W3C guidelines)
say this:

  http://accessit.nda.ie/guideline_1_69.html

  "Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate
  for a task and use the latest versions when supported."

Neither pdf nor rtf are W3C technologies and therefore are
appropriate only in a secondary role (i.e., where no relevant W3C
technology is available or appropriate).  So, for example, it is
entirely appropriate and helpful to provide pdf and rtf versions
as *alternatives* to primary HTML versions (specifically to
facilitate high quality printing).  But neither pdf nor rtf is
appropriate as a primary or sole format.

Again, I want to emphasise that I appreciate your interest and
concern, and I am sure that you want to do the "right" thing
here.  But it is clearly very important that the NDA be seen to
be an exemplar of its own guidelines; so I hope you will take
these comments as positive and constructive in helping you to do that.

Best regards,

- Barry.

-- 
Barry McMullin
http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~mcmullin/