Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Public Working Draft of May, 2007

Dear Edward Myers,

Thank you for your comments on the 17 May 2007 Public Working Draft of
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/). The WCAG Working Group
has reviewed all comments received on the May draft, and will be
publishing an updated Public Working Draft shortly. Before we do that,
we would like to know whether we have understood your comments
correctly, and also whether you are satisfied with our resolutions.

Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to
us by 19 November 2007 at public-comments-wcag20@w3.org to say whether
you are satisfied. Note that this list is publicly archived. Note also
that we are not asking for new issues, nor for an updated review of
the entire document at this time.

Please see below for the text of comments that you submitted and our
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 WCAG 2.0 Editor's
Draft of May-October 2007 at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20071102/

Thank you for your time reviewing and sending comments. Though we
cannot always do exactly what each commenter requests, all of the
comments are valuable to the development of WCAG 2.0.

Regards,

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: Remove three levels concept
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007May/0167.html
(Issue ID: 1956)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

Document: W2
Item Number: Components of Web Accessibility
Part of Item:
Comment Type: general comment
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):

I think having the A, AA, AAA standards are confusing and will lead to
some misapplication in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If you are saying that A is accessible then that will probably be the
standard that can be held up under the law as it is the bare minimum.

Proposed Change:

I would do away with the three tier concept as it will lead to a very
low standard of accessibility as being acceptable for persons with
disabilities. We don't have it in physical structures for
accessibility and we shouldn't have it in the web. (existing buildings
have their own standards and maybe you want to do that with websites).

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

Web technology, or information technology in general, presents
challenges unequal to that of buildings constructions. The three
levels were provided because of the different contexts in which WCAG
might be used. In some instances, a great level of accessibility would
be appropriate. Even all three levels however will not provide access
to everyone and this is also stated in the guidelines. The current
state of web technology and our knowledge cannot guarantee any web
content be fully accessible to every person with a disability or
combination of disabilities, especially certain types of severe
disabilities. Other structures were explored including just two levels
(required and advisory) but after much study that was found to work
less well.

Interpretation of the ADA applicability to the Web is, unfortunately,
outside the working group's scope.

----------------------------------------------------------
Comment 2: Levels on conformance
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007May/0167.html
(Issue ID: 2026)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

I think having the A, AA, AAA standards are confusing and will lead to
some misapplication in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If you are saying that A is accessible then that will probably be the
standard that can be held up under the law as it is the bare minimum.



Proposed Change:
I would do away with the three tier concept as it will lead to a very
low standard of accessibility as being acceptable for persons with
disabilities. We don't have it in physical structures for
accessibility and we shouldn't have it in the web. (existing buildings
have their own standards and maybe you want to do that with websites).

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

We have looked at several different conformance models including one
that has just SHALL and SHOULD provisions (which would be the one-tier
approach you propose). It was found that that approach would not work
for the variety of sites and uses the guidelines would have to meet.
In the end, and after much discussion , it was determined that the
three tier approach would work best.

Received on Sunday, 4 November 2007 04:22:30 UTC