RE: Comments on WCAG 2 Requirements

RE SUGGESTION #1  -  THAT DEFINITION OF ACCESSIBILITY IS NOT REALLY
CHANGING.
- agree completely.   From top to bottom.  Except I make the bracketed
edits. 

     a) WCAG X defines a set of requirements that, if met, will reduce
        barriers to accessibility for some users.  
 [CHANGE "SOME" TO "MANY..." OR "MOST USERS WITH DISABILITIES".]
 
     b) Therefore, conformance to WCAG X is very likely to improve
        accessibility for many users.
[ CHANGE "IS VERY LIKELY TO"   TO  "WILL"]
 
     c) Conformance is not a guarantee of accessibility.
 
     d) "Accessible" means can be used by a person with a disability. 
[PERHAPS  - ADD THE WORD EFFECTIVELY AFTER THE WORD USED]


RE; SUGGESTION #2   - REMOVING NUMBERS FOR DELETED ITEMS FROM APPENDIX
We cannot change the numbering without scrambling the record of
discussion in the archives.   So we just leave them like this.    True
it provides no information - but if there is no harm, then I think we
should leave them because renumbering would remove information from the
others (when renumbered) and deleting the numbers leaves one wondering
if something got dropped by accident.   Make sense now?  Or do you still
think they should be removed?


RE SUGGESTION #3  - EXPLAINING WHY CONFORMANCE BY DISABILITY IS NOT
GOOD.   
I guess we could.  I'll make a note to discuss this as an issue in the
conformance section.  

RE SUGGESTION #4 and #5 ABOUT COMBINING AND REWORDING
First, these are not requirements.  They are just statements of
consensus.  We do not spend a lot of time wordsmithing them since they
are not the deliverable.   Only things we agreed to and wrote down for
guidance and communication.  (and memory).  Often the statements
referred to are arrived at during successive discussions.  So they are
piecemeal sometimes.   Unless there is a problem we usually don't go
back and clean up grammar or style.    If you see a problem - then we
need to address these.  Otherwise they are just internal communication
items that we share externally so people can track what we are thinking.
Is there a problem with these?  if so please repost.   Thanks


RE SUGGESTION #6  - CAN BE OBTAINED FROM THE SAME URI
Your suggestion of having all the versions available from the same home
page does satisfy this item.   As does having an "accessible version"
link off of an inaccessible page - as long as the link is accessible.
So I'm not sure you do disagree.  Do you?


As always,  thanks for the comments.



Gregg

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

 


 -----Original Message-----
 From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf
 Of Ian B. Jacobs
 Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 10:59 AM
 To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
 Cc: ij@w3.org
 Subject: Comments on WCAG 2 Requirements
 
 Hello all,
 
 Congratulations on the publication of Requirements
 for WCAG 2.0 [1]. I wish the group continued
 progress. I have a couple of comments below.
 
   - Ian
 
 [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-wcag2-req-20020426
 
 1) Section 6: "Therefore, WCAG 2.0 must not completely change the
                 definition of accessible content."
 
     The WCAG 1.0 defines "accessible [content]" to be:
 
      "Content is accessible when it may be used by someone with a
       disability."
 
     This seems pretty immutable to me. Perhaps what section 6 should
     say is "Therefore, what WCAG 2.0 requires and what WCAG 1.0
     requires must not differ substantially."
 
     As usual, I prefer avoiding the "definition" of accessible
     content and instead leaning on the set of requirements that
     makes up WCAG 1.0 or 2.0. I think it's quite sufficient to say:
 
     a) WCAG X defines a set of requirements that, if met, will reduce
        barriers to accessibility for some users.
 
     b) Therefore, conformance to WCAG X is very likely to improve
        accessibility for many users.
 
     c) Conformance is not a guarantee of accessibility.
 
     d) "Accessible" means can be used by a person with a disability.
 
 2) Appendix A, Section "N": The entries that are deleted due to
     changes in structure (e.g., N1, N3, ...) are not useful because
     there is no context and no links. I suggest just getting rid of
     them unless there's some background why they were there in the
     first place. At least put the titles of the things that were
     deleted; as is there is no useful information.
 
 3) Appendix A, C4: "Should not be able to claim conformance by
     disability." I suggest that this be merged with C5. Please
     clarify in the document why conformance based on disability
     is considered a bad thing.
 
 4) Appendix A, M1: "It should be possible to use metadata to claim
     conformance". All claims are (represented in) metadata (whether
     in English, HTML, RDF, etc.). I'm not sure what this requirement
     means. The next entry (M2) hints at machine-readable formats,
     which is what I thought M1 was about. I suggest merging M1
     and M2 into something like:
 
     "Claimants should be able to represent their conformance claims
      using either a (primarily) human-readable format or a
      machine-readable format. The Working Group does not yet know
      whether a machine-readable format should always be required."
 
     I suggest strongly *not* requiring a machine-readable format
     for every claim. The TAG has been discussing whether all
     namespace documents should include machine-readable or
     human-readable information or both. Since there are many
     applications when one or the other is preferable, the TAG is
     making no absolute requirement (for now); they are simply
     indicating the advantages of each.
 
 5) Appendix A, M4: "It should be possible for authors to decide
     not to implement a particular checkpoint." This is very
     much in the UAAG 1.0 model: indicate what you don't do in the
     claim. However, it is not possible to exclude a checkpoint
     "arbitrarily" and still conform. Please clarify in M4 that
     excluding a checkpoint based on author's decision means the
     content doesn't conform. (Unless that's not what's intended,
     in which case I don't understand how conformance will work.)
 
 6) Appendix A, S1: "can be obtained by visiting the same URI".
     This seems unnecessarily strict. This implies that content
     negotiation is required, and I don't think that's necessary
     (I oppose this requirement). I think that if there are 10
     versions of content, and all 10 links are available from some
     home page, that meets the accessibility need. If you really mean
     that content negotiation is required, please provide very clear
     rationale.
 
 --
 Ian Jacobs (ij@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
 Tel:                     +1 718 260-9447

Received on Tuesday, 7 May 2002 22:48:54 UTC