Re: Issue #10

One proposal that takes into account recent discussion might be a
conformance scheme along the following lines:

1. Device and modality independence (guidelines 1 and 3), with a score
   indicating number of checkpoints satisfied. No claim can be made
   unless all priority 1 checkpoints have been implemented (because
   otherwise some parts of the content would be completely
   inaccessible).

2. Ease of interaction and navigation (guideline 2), with a score as
   above. Again, to comply with this category at all it would be
   necessary to meet every priority 1 checkpoint.

3. Ease of comprehension, with the same scoring system as above.

Developers could claim that their content is accessible in one, two or
all three of these dimensions.

The proposed scoring system could be used--that is, each checkpoint
would be worth 100/n where n is the number of checkpoints within the
relevant category (i.e., one of the three categories defined above).
Alternatively, a priority-based definition "A, AA, AAA" could be used
within each category. Other scoring systems are also possible, of
course; the foregoing are merely examples.

If multiple versions of the content are provided (whether they be
stored on a server or generated dynamically on demand), the developer
may make a conformance claim which covers all versions together, or
make a conformance claim with respect to each version. Thus, versions
optimised for different audiences or different purposes could receive
distinct WCAG conformance claims. Versions optimised for particular
devices could claim conformance to the "interaction/navigation" and/or
"comprehension" categories, but not the device-independence category,
etc. Essentially, the conformance claims that cover a web site can be
as simple or as finely nuanced as is necessary.

The techniques documents accompanying the guidelines would include:

1. Technology-specific techniques (HTML/XHTML, CSS, SVG, etc.); these
   are already under development.

2. Techniques covering consistency and predictability of interaction
   and navigation, etc.

3. Combined with 2 (above), or separately, techniques for improving
   the comprehensibility of web sites addressing the implementation of
   checkpoints under guideline 3.

Note: I am not here advocating this proposal; I am merely putting it
forward as an option that combines most of what has been suggested in
discussion during the past week.

Received on Thursday, 23 August 2001 19:42:29 UTC