RE: Granularity of conformance claims

Bruce,

	I am still struggling at preparing a list of accommodations for the
learning and cognitively disabled population. Not many people have been
looking for accessibility for those groups specifically. Since this person
says that's his purpose, I would like to see what he/she has done towards
that end. Please post the URL for the site, or if you prefer, send it to me
private e-mail. 

		Thanks,

			Anne
	
At 10:09 AM 7/22/1999 -0400, Bruce Bailey wrote:
>Allow me to quote from an email sent by contractor defending his work after 
>I critiqued his horribly inaccessible site.  Mind you, this vendor 
>understands that accessibility is an issue.  My main point in posting this 
>here is to provide hearsay evidence that vendors will try and use WCAG as a 
>"Chinese menu" -- picking and choosing among what they want.  And this is 
>with the current WCAG.  Charles' observations are quite on the mark.  We 
>don't dare weaken the A/AA/AAA levels!
>
>The names will remain anonymous to protect the guilty...
>
>> There is nothing in these guidelines which prevent having an alternate
>> site.  In fact, it is encouraged.  The W3C/WAI Web Content Accessibility
>> Guidelines themselves explicitly tell developers to create an alternate
>> page when the current page doesn't "transform" well.  As it stands,
>> our site meets a large number of the priority 1, 2, and 3 checkpoints
>> outlined in the guidelines.  Also, the graphics version is needed to
>> satisfy the requirements regarding people with learning disabilities to
>> help them associate ideas.  The text only version designed for blind 
>users
>> might violate their rights.
>
>I have written back saying that "required as a last resort" is more 
>accurate than "encouraged" and that it does not matter how many Priority 2 
>and 3 checkpoints are addressed if even ONE Priority 1 checkpoint is 
>missed, the site will remain inaccessible.
>
>Actually I went on in detail about a number of points.  This particular 
>work in progress is in real trouble because the vendor is generating the 
>"text-only parallel version" (yes, I have emphasized that this approach is 
>misguided) from a Java applet!  My main goal has been getting them to 
>understand that EVERYTHING they do with Java, by definition -- and 
>including the text-only pages, is not accessible!  [heavy sigh...]
>
>
>On Wednesday, July 21, 1999 9:37 PM, Charles McCathieNevile 
>[SMTP:charles@w3.org] wrote:
>> It seems to me that there is nothing to stop developers claiming partial
>> conformance in any way they want, but the actual conformance section of 
>the
>> document says effectively that the group thinks there are three different
>> types of conformance, which signal three different levels of 
>accessibility,
>> and do not offer any official recognition for any other type of claim.
>>
>> Effectively this allows the developers of web content to say all manner 
>of
>> things about what they have done to improve the accessibility of their 
>web
>> content, and to say that they claim to have attained (or exceeded) a
>> particular level of accessibility according to the WCAG 1.0 out of a 
>small
>> number of possible levels. Having a very small number of possible levels,
>> with simple natural descriptions of what they mean, allows for a much 
>easier
>> comparison and requirement setting than having to weigh the relative 
>value of
>> each checkpoint against each other.
>>
>> Which seems to me a good argument for leaving the status quo alone.
>>
>> Charles McCN
>
>
Anne L. Pemberton
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Pav/Academy1
http://www.erols.com/stevepem/apembert
apembert@crosslink.net
Enabling Support Foundation
http://www.enabling.org

Received on Thursday, 22 July 1999 11:33:56 UTC