Re: Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft of December, 2007

On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 5:18 PM, Loretta Guarino Reid
<lorettaguarino@google.com> wrote:
> Dear Bim Egan,
>
>  Thank you for your comments on the 11 Dec 2007 Last Call Working Draft
>  of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
>  http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20071211). The WCAG Working Group
>  has reviewed all comments received on the December draft. Before we
>  proceed to implementation, we would like to know whether we have
>  understood your comments correctly and whether you are satisfied with
>  our resolutions.
>
>  Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to
>  us by 31 March 2008 at public-comments-wcag20@w3.org to say whether
>  you accept them or to discuss additional concerns you have with our
>  response. Note that this list is publicly archived.
>
>  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 10 March 2008 at
>  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20080310/.
>
>  Note that if you still strongly disagree with our resolution on an issue,
>  you have the opportunity to file a formal objection (according to
>  3.3.2 of the W3C Process, at
>  http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews)
>  to public-comments-wcag20@w3.org. Formal objections will be reviewed
>  during the candidate recommendation transition meeting with the W3C
>  Director, unless we can come to agreement with you on a resolution in
>  advance of the meeting.
>
>  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
>
>  ----------------------------------------------------------
>  Comment 1: Contradiction in Understanding SC 1.4.8
>  Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Dec/0055.html
>  (Issue ID: 2376)
>  Status: VERIFIED / ACCEPTED
>  ----------------------------
>  Original Comment:
>  ----------------------------
>
>  There's an apparent contradiction within Understanding 1.4.8:
>
>  http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20071211/visual-audio-
>  contrast-visual-presentation.html
>
>  In the Intent of this Success Criterion
>
>  "People with some cognitive, language and learning disabilities and some
>  low vision users cannot perceive the text and/or lose their reading
>  place if the text is presented in a manner that is difficult for them to
>  read. "
>
>  and again under benefits:
>
>  Specific Benefits of Success Criterion 1.4.7: (sic)
>
>  This Success Criterion helps low vision users by letting them see text
>  without distracting presentational features. It lets them configure text
>  in ways that will be easier for them to see by letting them control the
>  color and size of blocks of text.
>
>  ....
>
>  People with some cognitive disabilities can read text better when they
>  select their own foreground and background color combinations.
>
>  All of which appears to indicate that users should be allowed to define
>  foreground and background colors in their browsers.
>
>  However, this isn't reflected in the techniques, where, the first bullet
>  point seems to recommend specifying background and text colours.
>
>  Sufficient Techniques
>  1. Techniques to ensure foreground and background colors can be selected
>  by the user
>
>
>  * Specifying foreground and background colors in CSS (future link) OR
>
>  * Providing a color selection tool that allows a pastel background
>  (future link) OR
>
>  * Providing a multi color selection tool on the page for foreground and
>  background colors (JavaScript, Future Link) OR
>
>  * Using a technology that has commonly-available user agents that can
>  change the foreground and background of blocks of text (General, future
>  link)
>
>
>  If authors DO specify all foreground and background colors, it is
>  virtually impossible for users to select their preferred, or required,
>  choice, without also losing visual clues to menu bars etc.  Colour is an
>  important aid to recognising menu content when reading is difficult.
>
>  Shouldn't the first sufficient technique ask authors to refrain from
>  specifying inessential foreground and background  colors for substantial
>  blocks of text?   After that, the current list  could continue, with a
>  slight amendment to the present first bullet:
>  * Any specified foreground and background colors are in CSS, not HTML
>  (future link) OR
>
>
>  I do hope I've made this clear, but do reply if there are any questions.
>  I'd be delighted to create a page that demonstrates the advantages of
>  not specifying either background or foreground, if this would help.
>
>  ---------------------------------------------
>  Response from Working Group:
>  ---------------------------------------------
>
>  If we understand you correctly, you are saying that the current list
>  could be fixed if we changed the first bullet to read, "Any specified
>  foreground and background colors are in CSS, not HTML."
>
>  We agree that it is important not to specify some but not all of the
>  colors. We have taken your advice with a couple of edits. First, all
>  of the techniques have to be in a "...ing" form. Second, since user
>  agents or users' style sheets can override colors specified in CSS or
>  HTML, we did not include ", not HTML."
>
>  We have changed this technique into "Specifying all foreground and
>  background color attributes of any given element in CSS"
>
>  We have also added an existing technique, G148, and an existing
>  failure, F24, to this success criterion.
>
>  Please note that sometimes techniques are retitled when they are
>  written. If you are interested in helping to write up this technique,
>  it would be wonderful. The link for submitting techniques is
>  http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/TECHS-SUBMIT/.
>
>  We also are very interested in your examples.
>

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

Based on additional comments from Sheena McCullagh, we have made the
following changes.

We have added three new sufficient techniques:

1. Specifying text and background colors of secondary content such as
banners, features and navigation in CSS while not specifying text and
background colors of the main content. (future link)

2. Specifying borders and layout in CSS to delineate areas of a web
page while not specifying text and text-background colors. (future
link)

3. Providing an additional stylesheet that does not specify colors for
the main content body (future link)

We have also added User Agents notes and additional description to
G156 to describe the problems that may occur if G156 is used
inappropriately.


Thanks again for the interest that you have taken in these guidelines.
Could we ask you to let us know whether or not you are satisfied with
this response by Wed, April 16?

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

Received on Friday, 11 April 2008 17:21:39 UTC