Comments on WCAG-EM from Association BrailleNet and evaluation experts

Hello,
Please find attached our comments on the document, Website Accessibility 
Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) 1.0

at:
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG-EM/

This methodology is reeally interesting. We found that most of what is 
written there has been implemented in our AccessiWeb evaluation 
methodology, that is widely
recognized and applied in France.
Some experts feel that it is sometimes complex to click on the numerous 
links in order to get term definitions. But once one gets used to it, it 
works
fine and the text is clear.
The document structure and layout make it easy to skim and understand.
Concerning the questions in the reviewer notes, here are our answers:
1. [Feedback on alternative terms is welcome. However, terms such as 
"essential functionality" could be misunderstood to mean relative 
importance between
functionality.]
We don't really understand this term. From what we read here, we 
understand that if this functionality disappears (or is removed) the 
nature of the Web
site is changed. We think that essential functionality would be easier 
to understand. May be it could be helpful to explain what this 
functionality is
not. Or it may be helpful to say: "a functionality or a service that is 
essential on a web site". Another suggestion would be to use the term 
"critical
functionality", that is used in the company of one of our experts.
-----
2. [Feedback on this section is particularly welcome. Are there examples 
of "separable areas" other than password-protected ones (back-end)?]"
Examples could be: visiting a museum virtually; a small site dealing 
with a specific product developped by a company; collaborative area for 
the inhabitants
of a city (with possibility to exchange things, look for baby sitters or 
someone who could work in the garden: this means third-party services).
A site with a specific topic considered as a subdomain. Areas with 
advertisement, areas with RSS feeds and pop-up windows, iframes. 
Specific content in
Flash, applet, widget, chatting room.
--------
3. [This section has been added since the previous draft and feedback on 
it is particularly welcome. For example, is 5% randomly selected web 
pages (to
complement structured sampling of web pages) sufficient? Is a minimum of 
5 web pages sufficient? What alternatives are there and what benefits do 
they
provide?]
The minimal amount of pages depends on the size of the web site. It may 
be more relevant to talk about a percentage instead of a set number of 
pages.
But some sites have such a big amount of pages that it would not be 
realistic to select a sample of 5%. In order to make regular audits, it 
may be helpful
to select a sample with a restricted number of pages (not more than 20 
pages) and make automated evaluations of randomly selected web pages, or 
on the
whole web site (as some tools allow to do this). However, for manual 
checks, it is not feasible to give a percentage. This could also be 
given to the reviewer's
discretion according to the context of the web site.
Several of us work more and more with automated tools and they consider 
that if they would not work with tools they would probably miss many 
accessibility errors that cannot be detected while choosing manually the 
pages of the sample. they feel that WACg-EM shoud give more importance 
to the help an automated tool can provide as today's web sites can be 
more complex and some of them are huge.
-------
4. [Feedback on the following types of reports is particularly welcome. 
For example, how well do they reflect actual situations? What other 
types of reporting
are typically provided in conformance evaluation?]
This part is really interesting. It may be useful to add a more teaching 
part for reports dedicated to decision-makers, in particular, a section 
explaining
the consequences of the success criteria for users. This would help to 
raise awareness on accessibility by all actors implied in the web site 
development.
Moreover, a basic report with a list of errors is really useful, if it 
is dedicated to people who already know about web accessibility and who 
just need
a checklist because they have no time to review the web site themselves. 
An example of report would be helpful to better illustrate what is meant 
here.
  ---------
  5. [Feedback on this section is particularly welcome. Another scoring 
approach being considered is to instead record failures of success 
criteria. Also
being considered is tracking those that are not applicable. Are there 
other simple yet effective scoring approaches? Is there an approach 
preferred by
the reviewer? For example, how do these scoring approaches work in 
practices? Should the scoring be based on applicable Success Criteria 
only? Is scoring
be a good idea at all?]
Many of us are reluctant to use scoring performance even if web site 
commissioners are really found of scores and percentages. As we did not 
reach consensus yet to answer this question, we need a few days more to 
discuss it and will send you feedback as soon as possible.
-- 
Sylvie Duchateau
Association BrailleNet
Tél.: +33 (0) 1 44 27 26 25 / Fax : +33 (0) 1 44 27 34 38
www.braillenet.org / www.accessiweb.org

Received on Tuesday, 9 April 2013 15:19:56 UTC