Priority of 1.1

I would like to raise the proposal again that the priority of 1.1 be phrased
in relative terms.

There is a question about how to check whether the relevant guidelines have
been ofllowed. This is completely orthogonal to the question of priority. One
way to check would be to look at the references listed in the techniques
document and see which of them are relevant.

There is also the fact that not all of the relevant documents explain the
priority of each of their requirements, and some of them use a different way
of grading the requirements. But the purpose of giving a definition of how
priorities are decided is so that correpsondences can be drawn relatively
easily.

Basically the case goes like this:
If we leave it as priority 1, we are either saying it is P1 to do everything
in the guidelines, irrespective of how imortant it is, or that it is P1 to
read the guidelines, but there we say nothing about whether anything in them
should be implemented.  Each case seems unacceptable.

By making it relative, we allow developers the ability to achieve a low level
of AU compliance without having to implement every last suggestion in the XYZ
application guidelines. This makes implementation of these guidelines a
realistic goal, which is after all important - I would rather have a crop of
level-A compliant tools, despite the fact that they are only barely useable,
than no accessible tols at all. There is of course a tension in that - if
level-A compliance produces a tool which is actually unusable, rather than
not easily used, then I fail to see the point. Of course I would far prefer
to see developers building for double-A or triple-A compliance, as I am sure
the best will.

so the proposal is to use the following wording for the priority of 1.1:

Priority 1 for standards and conventions which are essential to
accessibility, priority 2 for those that are important to accessibility, and
priority 3 for those that are beneficial to accessibility. (See the
definitions of priority)

Charles McCN

Received on Monday, 28 June 1999 19:45:26 UTC