RE: Fwd: Call for Review: Web Accessibility Metrics Research Report

Many thanks for this interesting report and workshop. This work is very important for the EU and we really hope that you will progress further in order to have your parallel work on assessment methodologies compatible with this.

A few comments from me:


1.    The report correctly separates conformance versus accessibility although not always very clearly separating them and neither really discussing how they could be possibly combined. Regarding the accessibility ones it doesn't apparently discuss the indicators developed by some teams regarding accessibility per major type of disabilities (including their severity level and predominance in populations which are key issues for stakeholders/policy-makers decisions).


2.    Regarding the characteristics selected, I don't know how the one selected correspond to those used in the EU for general impact assessment indicators (RACER):
Relevant - i.e. closely linked to the objectives to be reached
Accepted - e.g. by staff and stakeholders
Credible for non-experts, unambiguous and easy to interpret
Easy to monitor (e.g. data collection should be possible at low cost)
Robust - e.g. against manipulation


3.    Also one characteristics probably useful is the facility to combine indicators when aggregating information (eg from sub-sites of a portal, from sites in a geographic region or a activity domain). Also the issue of the possibility or not to compare indicators between sites (or groups of sites) and therefore possibly draw order [along some of the indicator dimensions] between sites (or groups of sites).



4.    One aspect which appears also missing is a discussion on the minimum number of dimensions a "good" (according to the retained characteristics) indicator should have. Both in terms of criteria or accessibility issues covered (e.g. one score-card value is probably much too simplistic for a site) and in term of statistical representativity (e.g. extracted from an identification of the type of distribution of the issues diagnosed)



5.    The idea of competition to progress the field is very good, but I would definitely not limited to a set of good-bad web-sites examples and I would suggest complementing the competition with some real and large scale processing (several hundreds of mixed size sites) to detect the real difficulties and to decide appropriate solutions.


FYI-1 the EU FP7 ICT WP2013 section 5.3.b3 (1MEUR planned) might be supportive for such future work (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/docs/ict-wp2013-10-7-2013.pdf) while section 5.3.a(i) might help on discussing service accessibility as a combination of compatibly-conformant contents, applications, interfaces,etc

FYI-2 the EC is currently considering legislative intervention for Europe on Web Accessibility and if this is to be deployed in a few years the issue of common measurement will have to be developed with EU Member States, hopefully based on elements that would have been made available as a result of EU standardisation work M376  (http://www.mandate376.eu/) done in relation with some WAI experts (e.g. via WAI-ACT).

BR
François
--
François JUNIQUE (Policy & Project Officer)

Tel: +32 (0)2 29 -63846
Communications Networks, Content and Technology Directorate-General (DG ConNECT) - European Commission
before 1/7/2012 known as DG INFSO
from 1/7/2012: Flagships (Excellence in Science) http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/programme/fet/flagship/
http://www.facebook.com/FETFlagships - http://twitter.com/FETFlagships
[Living Earth Platform? Graphene for ICT? Guardian Angels? Human Brain? IT Future of Medicine? Robot Companions?]
Assistant: Rafaela OLIVEIRA LIMA (mailto:Rafaela.Oliveira-Lima@ec.europa.eu , tel: -90703) - Fax: -91749
Postal address: European Commission - Office BU25 5/40 - 1049 Brussels - BELGIUM
until recently: ICT for Inclusion (ICT addressing Societal Challenges)
[including e-Accessibility and in particular web-accessibility]
previous Assistant: Laura IRIMIA (mailto:Laura.Irimia@ec.europa.eu , tel: -93918)






-----Original Message-----
From: Shadi Abou-Zahra [mailto:shadi@w3.org]
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2012 9:56 PM
To: MARSELLA Marco (CNECT); JUNIQUE Francois (CNECT)
Cc: CNECT-ICT-287725
Subject: Fwd: Call for Review: Web Accessibility Metrics Research Report



Dear Marco, Dear Francois,



For your information, as you had requested:



Please find below the announcement for the first public working draft of

"Research Report on Web Accessibility Metrics", open for comments until

30 September 2012.



This draft Report is a consolidated view of the outcomes of the Website

Accessibility Metrics Online Symposium held on 5 December 2011.



This work is developed by the W3C/WAI Research and Development Working

Group (RDWG) with support from the EC-funded WAI-ACT Project.



Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.



Regards,

   Shadi





-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Call for Review: Web Accessibility Metrics Research Report

Resent-Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:14:45 +0000

Resent-From: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>

Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:14:31 -0500

From: Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org<mailto:shawn@w3.org>>

To: WAI Interest Group <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>>



Dear WAI Interest Group Participants,



The W3C WAI Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) invites you to

comment on the First Public Working Draft of the Research Report on Web

Accessibility Metrics, a W3C Working Group Note, available at:

       http://www.w3.org/TR/accessibility-metrics-report/



Accessibility metrics can extend the existing WCAG 2.0 conformance model

to provide scores for the accessibility level of websites in more depth

and detail. This Report provides considerations for validity,

reliability, sensitivity, adequacy, and complexity as the main qualities

of measuring web accessibility. The Report is a consolidated view of the

outcomes of the Website Accessibility Metrics Online Symposium;

information about the Symposium is at:

http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2011/metrics/



For this Draft, RDWG is looking for feedback on:

  * Summaries of the extended abstracts contributed to the online symposium

  * Discussion on the state-of-the-art and conclusions drawn in the document

  * Related resources that may be useful to the discussion within the

document



Please send comments on this draft document to the publicly archived

mailing list

       public-wai-rd-comments@w3.org<mailto:public-wai-rd-comments@w3.org>

       *by 30 September 2012*



---------

RDWG Background:



The Research and Development Working Group (RDWG) helps:

  - increase accessibility considerations in research on web

technologies, including mainstream research,

  - suggest research questions that may contribute to web accessibility

research projects,

  - inform development of web accessibility solutions,

  - decrease the number of potential barriers in future web-related

technologies.



RDWG Symposia bring together researchers, practitioners, and users with

disabilities interested in a particular aspect of web accessibility to

advance research and development in that area. The online Symposia

include a panel with the authors of accepted papers, and provide an

opportunity for participants to ask questions. Symposia proceedings,

transcript, and a report are available publicly online afterward.



For more information, see the RDWG FAQ: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/process>



We welcome your ideas for future RDWG work. Please send comments to the

publicly-archived mailing list: <public-wai-rd@w3.org<mailto:public-wai-rd@w3.org>>



This Symposium is developed with support of the EC-funded WAI-ACT

Project (IST 287725) described at: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/ACT/>



If you have any questions, contact Shadi Abou-Zahra: shadi@w3.org<mailto:shadi@w3.org>



Regards,

Shawn Lawton Henry, WAI Outreach

Simon Harper, RDWG Co-Chair

Shadi Abou-Zahra, RDWG W3C Staff Contact







-----

Shawn Lawton Henry

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)

e-mail: shawn@w3.org<mailto:shawn@w3.org>

phone: +1.617.395.7664

about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/