Re: Conformance question

This has been discussed at length in the group. The most recent occasion it
was brought up was the Working group meeting on 1 September, where the
suggestion of doing something similar (providing a vconformance that did not
require meeting the checkpoints in what is now guideline 7) was rejected.

Although this has been a difficult issue for the group, I think a fair
summary of the working consensus is that a tool which conforms to the
Accessibility Guidelines must be accessible, and until that goal is reached
the tool in question is merely good for some aspects of accessibility (in the
same way that a tool which is accessible in itself, but leads the author to
produce inaccessible content, or prevents the author from producing
accessible content, should not be able to claim conformance).

Regards

Charles McCN

On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Jon Gunderson wrote:

  You only have one type of conformance listed in the document.  I know there
  was discussion a few months ago related to the issues of the authoring tool
  being accessible and producing accessible content.  It was brought to the
  attention of the coordination group.  
  
  I was wondering if there was any discussion about having two types of
  conformance, instead of the one listed in the last call document? 
  
  Conformance types I was thinking of:
  1. Conformance in creating accessible web content
  2. Conformance for an accessible interface and compatibility with assistive
  technology
  
  It seems to me that two levels would give developers more managable goals
  to target their accessibility resources and highlight to consumers the
  level and type of accessibility of authoring tools as developers increase
  the accessibility of their product.  
  
  I checked the AU issue list to see how it was resolved, but there was no
  reference to when or how the issue was resolved.
  
  Jon
  
  
  Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
  Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
  Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group
  Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
  University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  1207 S. Oak Street
  Champaign, IL 61820
  
  Voice: 217-244-5870
  Fax: 217-333-0248
  E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu
  WWW:	http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
  		http://www.w3.org/wai/ua
  		http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess
  

--Charles McCathieNevile            mailto:charles@w3.org
phone: +1 617 258 0992   http://www.w3.org/People/Charles
W3C Web Accessibility Initiative    http://www.w3.org/WAI
MIT/LCS  -  545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139,  USA

Received on Tuesday, 21 September 1999 12:40:41 UTC