RE: CONFORMANCE: new sentence on testability, plus comments

John here again.  Gregg writes

 ...  no matter what we do there will always be people who cannot use the
site.  Even if the site were rewritten specifically for that individual,
there are some who would not be able to comprehend or use the site.    So
the minimum will not be able to cover every technique that would be needed
by every person.    Higher levels will include things that would make sites
usable by more people, but never all.

 

John's response to Gregg's comment:

This is the first time I've read such an explicit statement about the
*limitations* of conformance.  I think it might be wise to include such an
acknowledgment.  This is partly a matter of being open about the
difficulties of aiming for full accessibility.  But it's also a way to help
people understand why it's important to go *beyond* minimum conformance.
Without such a motivating statement, developers (or more particularly the
people who make the budgetary decisions) might be inclined to believe that
achieving Levels 2 and 3 (if there is a Level 3) is simply a matter of
bragging rights rather than necessity for some people.  We might want to
take this issue into account in the "Benefits" sections.  If minimum
conformance to a specific checkpoint still excludes people with specific
disabilities, for example, then Level 2 might mean that the site is now
minimally accessible to that group, at the same time (maybe) that it becomes
easier for people who benefitted from the minimum.  Does this work?

 

John

 

 

John also wrote

(2) The conformance statement says that Level 2 and Level 3 "build on" the
level of functionality achieved by meeting the minimum requirements, thereby
making content accessible to people who still wouldn't be able to get to it
if only the minimum requirements had been met, or making it easier for
people to use (instead of just barely accessible), etc., etc.  But for a
number of the checkpoints, the only difference between "Minimum" and Level 2
is that, at Level 2, the material has been reviewed and the reviewer(s)
believe(s) it meets the requirements.  This is "going beyond" the minimum
requirement in organizational/bureaucratic terms, but it doesn't ensure that
the developers have done anything more than they did to meet the minimum
requirement-so it may not affect the quality of the user's experience.

 

 

 

Response:

Yes.  This does seem to be a problem.   Lets figure out the levels and then
revisit this.

 

 


Gregg

 

 

 

 

 

Gregg

------------------------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Ind Engr - Biomed - Trace,  Univ of Wis
gv@trace.wisc.edu