RE: [user-assistance-discuss] Thoughts on Graphical Callouts

["Paul Prescod" <paul.prescod@xmetal.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Norman Walsh [mailto:ndw@nwalsh.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 7:56 AM
> To: Paul Prescod
> Cc: user-assistance-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [user-assistance-discuss] Thoughts on Graphical Callouts
> 
>...
> 
> For what it's worth, DocBook "areaset" markup is designed to 
> support floating letters or numbers. The HTML stylesheets 
> generate a client side imagemap for the callout marks. 

A few questions:

1. Do the stylesheets actually generate any kind of marks or do you
presume that the marks are in the underlying graphic?

2. Do you do anything with callouts in print or other output formats?

3. Can you comment on any non-obvious requirements that have been
expressed over the years which were incorporated into the curent design?


4. Have users expressed requirements that you never got around to
incorporating?

5. Have you considered any kind of "alt text" for areas? For example,
one could imagine that callouts on a map might be replaced with textual
descriptions of addresses. Of course it is hard to imagine a textual
description of a toolbar button, but perhaps alternative text could
describe how to invoke the action through the keyboard.

 Paul Prescod