Re: AUWG action: re: accessibility supported uses

Hi all,

Just an FYI that WAI-PF has approved of the way AUWG is proposing to 
address the "accessibility supported uses" concept.

Cheers,
Jan


Jan Richards wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> There was concern at the last meeting (and in the survey about the WCAG 
> 2.0 wording in the last paragraph. Here is an updated proposal (nothing 
> else has changed from 
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2010JanMar/0024.html):
> 
> (1) If possible, let's stick with "conforms to WCAG 2.0" with the extra
> wording.
> 
> (2) Add link in definition "Accessible web content is web content that
> conforms to a particular level of WCAG 2.0 (see *Relationship to WCAG
> 2.0* section).
> 
> (3) Rewording "Relationship to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
> (WCAG) 2.0" - trying to make it shorter and clearer:
> 
> Because WCAG 2.0 is the most recent W3C Recommendation regarding web
> content accessibility, ATAG 2.0 frequently refers to WCAG 2.0
> conformance in order to set requirements for (1) the accessibility of
> web-based authoring tool user interfaces (Part A) and (2) how authors
> should be enabled, supported, and guided towards producing accessible
> web content (Part B).
> 
> Note on "accessibility-supported ways of using technologies":
> 
> Part of conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the requirement that "only
> accessibility-supported ways of using technologies are relied upon to
> satisfy the [WCAG 2.0] success criteria. Any information or
> functionality that is provided in a way that is not accessibility
> supported is also available in a way that is accessibility supported."
> In broad terms, a technology is considered accessibility supported when
> (1) the way that the Web content technology is used is supported by
> users' assistive technology and (2) the Web content technology has
> accessibility-supported user agents that are available to users.
> 
> This concept is not easily extended to authoring tools because many
> tools can be installed and used in a variety of environments with
> differing availabilities for assistive technologies and user agents
> (e.g., private intranets versus public websites, monolingual sites
> versus multilingual sites, etc.). Therefore:
> 
> *For the purposes of ATAG 2.0 conformance, the accessibility-supported
> requirement is waived.*
> 
> <CHANGED TEXT>
> 
> Once an authoring tool has been installed and put into use, it is 
> possible to assess the WCAG 2.0 conformance of the web content that the 
> tool produces, including whether the WCAG 2.0 accessibility-supported 
> requirement is met. However, this WCAG 2.0 conformance assessment would 
> be completely independent of the authoring tool's conformance with ATAG 
> 2.0.
> 
> </CHANGED TEXT>
> 
> Cheers,
> Jan
> 
> 
>> Hi all,
>>
>> (I am cc'ing WAI-CG because of interest expressed there re: 
>> coordinating this issue)
>>
>> I took this action on the Monday meeting...
>>
>> ACTION: JR clarify in the "accessibility supported" piece that the onus
>> is on the installer/author
>>
>> Updated proposal:
>> (original: 
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2010JanMar/0011.html)
>>
>> (1) If possible, let's stick with "conforms to WCAG 2.0" with the 
>> extra wording.
>>
>> (2) Add link in definition "Accessible web content is web content that 
>> conforms to a particular level of WCAG 2.0 (see *Relationship to WCAG 
>> 2.0* section).
>>
>> (3) Rewording "Relationship to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
>> (WCAG) 2.0" - trying to make it shorter and clearer:
>>
>> Because WCAG 2.0 is the most recent W3C Recommendation regarding web 
>> content accessibility, ATAG 2.0 frequently refers to WCAG 2.0 
>> conformance in order to set requirements for (1) the accessibility of 
>> web-based authoring tool user interfaces (Part A) and (2) how authors 
>> should be enabled, supported, and guided towards producing accessible 
>> web content (Part B).
>>
>> Note on "accessibility-supported ways of using technologies":
>>
>> Part of conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the requirement that "only
>> accessibility-supported ways of using technologies are relied upon to
>> satisfy the [WCAG 2.0] success criteria. Any information or 
>> functionality that is provided in a way that is not accessibility 
>> supported is also available in a way that is accessibility supported." 
>> In broad terms, a technology is considered accessibility supported 
>> when (1) the way that the Web content technology is used is supported 
>> by users' assistive technology and (2) the Web content technology has 
>> accessibility-supported user agents that are available to users.
>>
>> This concept is not easily extended to authoring tools because many 
>> tools can be installed and used in a variety of environments with 
>> differing availabilities for assistive technologies and user agents 
>> (e.g., private intranets versus public websites, monolingual sites 
>> versus multilingual sites, etc.). Therefore:
>>
>> *For the purposes of ATAG 2.0 conformance, the accessibility-supported 
>> requirement is waived. However, once an authoring tool has been 
>> installed and put into use, it would be appropriate for the web 
>> content it produces (and the authoring tool user interface of 
>> web-based authoring tools) to be assessed for WCAG 2.0 conformance 
>> within its environment, including whether the accessibility-supported 
>> requirement is met.*
> 

-- 
(Mr) Jan Richards, M.Sc.
jan.richards@utoronto.ca | 416-946-7060

Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC)
Faculty of Information | University of Toronto

Received on Thursday, 4 February 2010 19:16:20 UTC