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

Dear Alistair,

My "Checklist" is the WCAG guidelines and the question is "does this 
page/site comply with each guideline?".

I have testing procedures for each guideline, but I suppose you could have 
individual checklists too.

As far as I know the only areas for possible ambiguity are subjective such 
as where words such as "understandable" and "meaningful". But generally 
things like keyboard functionality work or do not work.

So my answer to your question about which procedure to follow is that any 
*correct* procedure can be followed as each will give the same result.

Richard



-----Original Message----- 
From: Alistair Garrison
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 9:24 PM
To: RichardWarren
Cc: Eval TF
Subject: 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
>


Richard Warren
Technical Manager
Website Auditing Limited (Userite)
http://www.website-accessibility.com

Received on Tuesday, 19 November 2013 13:47:53 UTC