Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL)

The purpose of the Device Independent Authoring Language (DIAL) is to provide a markup language for the filtering and presentation of Web page content available across different delivery contexts. This will facilitate an optimal user experience following adaptation of the DIAL instance document. Please refer to the DIAL Primer for an introduction to the profile and its purpose. DIAL is a language profile based on existing W3C XML vocabularies and CSS modules. These provide standard mechanisms for representing Web page structure, presentation and form interaction. The DIAL also makes use of the DISelect metadata vocabulary for overcoming the authoring challenges inherent in authoring for multiple delivery contexts. DIAL is part of the Authoring for Device Independence work category of the DIWG. This encompasses a number of work items associated with authoring Web sites and applications that support access from a wide range of devices with a variety of delivery contexts. These include work on Authoring Challenges, Authoring Techniques, and Scenarios and Extension Markup.