Re: Following properly documented existing procedures - A hypothetical question?

Dear Richard, 

From experience, I get the impression that evaluators tend to work from checklists (which they compile over time, and generally hold many but not all of the variations of things people do in reality).  If two people have slightly different checklists problems can occur - and really this was the reason for my question.

When I chair the Evaluation Methodology harmonisation efforts for the EuroAccessibility Consortium we had many players in many countries with slightly different checklists - same when I chaired initial Evaluation Methodology efforts for Support-EAM / WABCluster.

With reference to my reply to Detlev, the question is still - if a properly documented evaluation / testing procedure exists for a web page (albeit defined by someone else) should I not follow it, in place of my own? 

All the best 

Alistair  

On 18 Nov 2013, at 20:21, RichardWarren wrote:

> Dear Alistair,
> 
> In your hypothetical (and indeed in any practical) case - if an evaluator uses WCAG-EM and as a result made a conformance claim then any one else evaluating the same page by whatever method should arrive at a similar conclusion and thus be able to issue a similar conformance claim.
> 
> Remember that we are issuing claims for conformance to the guidelines. The existence or not of any *particular* technique is not relevant - so long as some technique has been used to ensure compliance. For example it does not matter whether the engineer has used the <label> or <label for="xx"> technique to tie the instruction to the input field so long as whichever is used is used correctly. So if the first evaluator finds that the <label> element has been used correctly to surround both the instruction and input field the second evaluator has to do the same. The second evaluator cannot say that the page fails because the <label for="xx"> technique has not been used. The important thing is that one of the appropriate techniques has been used.
> 
> WCAG-EM codifies a procedure which, if followed, will give consistent results. However other procedures should give similar results, though probably not as well documented or traceable.
> 
> Regards
> Richard
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Alistair Garrison
> Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 4:54 PM
> To: Eval TF
> Subject: Following properly documented existing procedures - A hypothetical question?
> 
> Dear All,
> 
> A hypothetical question.
> 
> Scene-setting:
> 
> A qualified person has evaluated a single web page and has made a report - properly documenting all things asked for in the WCAG-EM.  They tested the sufficient techniques used by the developers, and all relevant failure criteria. They have found no issues in the web content in the web page. Based on their report (but as a separate additional activity to the WCAG-EM) they have gone on to make a proper WCAG 2.0 conformance claim for the single web page.
> 
> I have been asked to evaluate the web page above.  I find the claim, and the supporting evidence.
> 
> My question is this - "Am I honour bound to follow the procedure they have documented?"
> 
> The thought in my head is yes - that I should follow their procedure if it is properly documented.  I would of course check all relevant failure conditions, but if I didn't follow their procedure and started to test the page using tests from sufficient techniques I've chosen (which have not been used to develop the web content) I might find a failure or two - just because they have done things differently.
> 
> Any thoughts on the above would be good, as we might have to mention the necessity to follow properly documented existing procedures when re-evaluating web pages somewhere in our document.
> 
> All the best
> 
> Alistair
> 
> Richard Warren
> Technical Manager
> Website Auditing Limited (Userite)
> http://www.website-accessibility.com 
>

Received on Monday, 18 November 2013 21:25:06 UTC