Re: difference between techniques and procedures

Dear Shadi and Eval Team,

I am concerned that we are making things overly complex.

Our task is to develop a procedure for checking compliance with the 
Guidelines.

We are not validating the method/s used by the designer to meet the 
guidelines. - Yes it makes our job easier if the designer has used specified 
techniques etc. But the final test is "are there text alternatives for 
non-text content?", "Does it work properly when using a keyboard?", "Can 
users avoid and correct mistakes?" etc...

Now if I use the 'procedures' as listed by W3C to check for compliance with 
each guideline I can tell the designer that I have done so and that his/her 
site either complies with the guidelines, or does not. My report will tell 
the designer which guidelines are complied with and which not. Any third 
party can check my results using the same procedures.

That is all I need to do in my role as an evaluator. (Step 4 of section 3 
Evaluation Procedure)

In my role as a consultant I clearly need to do a lot more by identifying 
why and where it is non-compliant and how the designer should address the 
problems etc..

I therefore still believe that steps 1.e and 4b should relate to the 
procedures used by the evaluator to check for compliance.

As for Failure Techniques, I agree that they could be better written, but 
they are more relevant to the designer and consultant (i.e. analysing 
why/how a failure happens) rather that to the evaluator.

Regards

Richard

-----Original Message----- 
From: Shadi Abou-Zahra
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2012 1:03 PM
To: RichardWarren
Cc: Eval TF
Subject: Re: difference between techniques and procedures

I think we should continue to reference the "Techniques" rather than the
test procedures which are a sub-part of a technique. The other parts of
a technique can also be relevant for evaluation, for example the
"applicability" clauses that an evaluators needs to consider too.

Also, I think that one of the issues is that WCAG 2.0 and supporting
documents do not explain "Failure Techniques" ("Common Failures") [1]
clearly enough. We probably need to describe these a little more.

[1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/failures.html>

Best,
   Shadi


On 2.6.2012 12:50, RichardWarren wrote:
> In the light of our discussions on step 1e I think that Step 4b also 
> appears to be confusing. I think we are trying to say that we will record 
> the testing techniques as described at 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/intro.html#intro_testing_techs .
>
> When W3C describes techniques in its techniques collection it refers to 
> these testing techniques as “procedures” at the end of each document under 
> the title “Tests”.  See an example at 
> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G1.html#G1-tests
>
> We too should use the words test procedure when we refer to what we do 
> when we check for compliance. This would avoid confusion between the 
> techniques that the web-designer uses to create an accessible page and the 
> processes we, as evaluators, use to check that the page is compliant 
> (either by using a W3C technique, or some other technique).
>
> Richard

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/
Activity Lead, W3C/WAI International Program Office
Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
Research and Development Working Group (RDWG)

Received on Friday, 8 June 2012 13:19:02 UTC