Re: do we want to omit the confidence property?

The confidence property is useful when applied to an accessibility test 
result. Some tests have a high confidence that the result is correct while 
other tests have a low confidence that the result is correct.

For example a test that looks for an alt attribute on an image element will 
have a high confidence that the result is correct.

A test that tries to determine if the alt text is appropriate for an image 
with give a result that has a low confidence is correct.

It's useful to know how confident the test result is. Tests with a high 
confidence level that fail are more likely to need user intervention while 
tests with a low confidence level that fail are less likely to need user 
intervention. This is useful information when trying to decide which 
accessibility problems really exist and need fixing.

I think the confidence property should be in EARL and we should specify what 
it means. We can use a 3 level scale (high, medium and low) or some sort of 
numeric scale.

Cheers,
Chris


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shadi Abou-Zahra" <shadi@w3.org>
To: <public-wai-ert@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 4:41 AM
Subject: do we want to omit the confidence property?


>
> Dear Group,
>
> Even though this discussion has come up several times in the past, it is 
> worth a revisit in the light of the latest status of the EARL schema. The 
> issue is that earl:confidence is not specified in any way (not even a 
> recommendation on how to use it) thus making it effectively useless. The 
> only argument for keeping this property in the schema is to have a 
> consistent extension point for this type of information. However, this 
> information will not be interchangeable between tools if there is no 
> guidance on how to use the property.
>
> The possible directions are:
>
> 1. keep it as it currently is, even though it is ambiguous
> 2. drop the property as a whole until there is enough interest
> 3. invest time to define a proper usage for the property
>
> What are peoples thoughts on this?
>
> Regards,
> Shadi
>
>
> -- 
> Shadi Abou-Zahra     Web Accessibility Specialist for Europe | Chair & 
> Staff Contact for the Evaluation and Repair Tools WG | World Wide Web 
> Consortium (W3C)           http://www.w3.org/ | Web Accessibility 
> Initiative (WAI),   http://www.w3.org/WAI/ | WAI-TIES Project, 
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/TIES/ | Evaluation and Repair Tools WG, 
> http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/ | 2004, Route des Lucioles - 06560, 
> Sophia-Antipolis - France | Voice: +33(0)4 92 38 50 64          Fax: 
> +33(0)4 92 38 78 22 |
>

Received on Monday, 25 September 2006 13:54:09 UTC