RE: Don't require <Q>

My comments on 508 were not to implement AA.  I felt there were some areas
that were vague (at the time) , open to interpretation and just not
practical to implement given the development community.  My fear was there
would be too much resistance and lack of buy-in.  This had to succeed, and
taking small steps was better and to show he government was serious about
it.  I am glad to say this was the philosophy and concern that many people
shared.

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org]  On
Behalf Of Bailey, Bruce
Sent:	Tuesday, January 16, 2001 3:36 PM
To:	'Kynn Bartlett'
Cc:	'Web Content Accessibility Guidelines'
Subject:	RE: Don't require <Q>

Dear Kynn,
I won't pretend to be typical, but if memory serves, two years ago I had
just joined the WAI IG list.  True, I had been involved with disability
issues before that, and I was self-motivated to do the right thing.  Even
so, Double-A was clearly too limiting, given the state of the art of
browsers.  I assumed that this was by design and not mostly accidental!  At
the time, and until relatively recently, I liked the priority scheme, and
the discrete compliance levels.  I do wonder if you are right about P2 items
getting into the Section 508 rules (don't call them guidelines, they are
much stronger than that).  The advisory committee to the Access Board
recommend Double A compliance as the standard.  This recommendation was
rejected.  Who knows why (not me certainly), but it's fair to guess that
Double A was obviously too tough, and the advisory committee refused to put
the P2 items into any kind of hierarchy, so the Access Board just dropped
down to the next "level".  As Len has pointed out, a few of P2 items (e.g.,
3.1 and 5.3) are more important than the rest.  It would be a shame if these
were not carefully considered.


> ----------
> From: 	Kynn Bartlett
> Sent: 	Tuesday, January 16, 2001 4:02 PM
> To: 	Bailey, Bruce
> Cc: 	'Web Content Accessibility Guidelines'; 'Wendy A Chisholm'; 'Leonard
> R. Kasday'
> Subject: 	Re: Don't require <Q>
>
> At 12:37 PM 1/16/2001 , Bailey, Bruce wrote:
> >It was actually this checkpoint that made decide to settle for Single-A
> >compliance.  Kynn would be pleased to know that missing AA didn't scare
> me
> >off most of the other P2 and P3 items.
>
> I am pleased, although I daresay that you (as an active member
> of the Web Accessibility Initiative and other such projects) are
> far from an average test case.
>
> Question to consider:  If we didn't have the artificial divide
> of priority 1, priority 2, and priority 3 -- and instead tried to,
> I dunno, urge compliance based on common sense -- how many more
> checkpoints would there have been included in Section 508 guidelines?
>
> It's my estimation that a "priority 2" checkpoint means a far less
> greater chance of someone doing it than priority 1, and giving
> something a priority 3 checkpoint is pretty much a death wish for
> that checkpoint.  (Interpretation by insiders, such as Bruce, who
> understand WCAG on a deeper level than average will of course produce
> atypical results.)
>
> --Kynn
>
> --
> Kynn Bartlett  <kynn@idyllmtn.com>                http://kynn.com/
> Technical Developer Relations, Reef           http://www.reef.com/
> Chief Technologist, Idyll Mountain Internet   http://idyllmtn.com/
> Contributor, Special Ed. Using XHTML     http://kynn.com/+seuxhtml
> Unofficial Section 508 Checklist       http://kynn.com/+section508

Received on Tuesday, 16 January 2001 16:48:08 UTC