Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Draft of April 2006

Dear Tomoaki Kodaka ,

Thank you for your comments on the 2006 Last Call Working Draft of the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-20060427/). We appreciate the
interest that you have taken in these guidelines.

We apologize for the delay in getting back to you. We received many
constructive comments, and sometimes addressing one issue would cause
us to revise wording covered by an earlier issue. We therefore waited
until all comments had been addressed before responding to commenters.

This message contains the comments you submitted and the resolutions
to your comments. Each comment includes a link to the archived copy of
your original comment on
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/, and may
also include links to the relevant changes in the updated WCAG 2.0
Public Working Draft at http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/.

PLEASE REVIEW the decisions  for the following comments and reply to
us by 7 June at public-comments-WCAG20@w3.org to say whether you are
satisfied with the decision taken. Note that this list is publicly
archived.

We also welcome your comments on the rest of the updated WCAG 2.0
Public Working Draft by 29 June 2007. We have revised the guidelines
and the accompanying documents substantially. A detailed summary of
issues, revisions, and rationales for changes is at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/05/change-summary.html . Please see
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ for more information about the current review.

Thank you,

Loretta Guarino Reid, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Gregg Vanderheiden, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Michael Cooper, WCAG WG Staff Contact

On behalf of the WCAG Working Group

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Comment 1:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/20060621151513.21ADADAE91@w3c4-bis.w3.org
(Issue ID: LC-853)

Part of Item:
Comment Type: general comment
Comment (including rationale for proposed change):

　The degree of the spread of audio description is different country to country.
I doubt that our situation in audio description is Level1 slightly,
because the word "audio description" itself is not penetrated in my
country. In Japan some volunteer groups add audio description to
movies.
But it is not spread at the movie theater. It is desirable that all
Web image content has audio description. But we don't know what audio
description is and how to produce it-this is our present situation. So
I feel fear that image content is left out of the Web units
intentionally, by we are detected Level1.It is sure that people who
lost the sense of sight can't get any information which is appeared by
only animations. Images lacking in text alternatives don't have
information at all, while multimedia　lacking in audio description has
much information―lines, sounds and so on. When we hear the sound of
train, we can guess the place is a station. We can understand people
are angry or laughing by their tone.
It is fact that many blind men enjoy listening TV. Lacking in audio
description is not a situation in which there is no information. But
producing audio description takes time and money.Level1 is an obstacle
for us. So I feel fear that image content is left out of the Scoping
of conformance claims.


Proposed Change:

I hope that audio description is prescribed from Level2 and aimed at
LevelAA as a following aim.
It will surely improve accessibility of image contents. I think.

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Response from Working Group:
----------------------------

Audio description is not required at level A. Either a "full text
alternative for multimedia including any interaction" *or* an audio
description is sufficent. We require Audio Description at Level AA. We
could not leave out Audio Description from the guidelines because they
are necessary for blind people.

There are two general techniques for making multimedia accessible to
the blind: Audio Description (AD) and "full text alternative for
multimedia including any interaction". Either technique is acceptable
for Level A WCAG 2.0 conformance. Audio Description is required for
Level AA. Both techniques are required for Level AAA. This is a case
where higher-level success criteria build upon the requirements of
lower-level success criteria with the intention of having cumulative,
progressively stronger, requirements.

Audio Descriptions were required at Priority A in the WCAG 1.0 which
has been a standard since 1999 and was accepted by Keio in Japan.
However, in the WCAG 2.0 we have allowed the option for "full text
alternative for multimedia including any interaction" at level A.

Received on Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:45:09 UTC