What determines what goes in level 1, 2, 3 etc as success criteria

In the meeting I also said that I would try to document what it looked
like we were doing with regard to "what goes in as level 1 vs level 2 vs
Level 3 etc success criteria.

 

In the notes below 

MACHINE - means machine testable

HIRR  - means  Human evaluate-able with High Inter Rater Reliability
(meaning that raters who understood the issue and/or the measures would
agree when rating web content on the item.)

  

 

POSSIBLE GOAL STATEMENTS FOR CREATING LEVEL 1,2,3 etc SUCCESS CRITERIA

 

Criteria for Level 1 Success Criteria  {All of the criteria should be
true}

 

-                    Must be testable  (Machine or HIRR)  [as per
previous email]

-                    We want to recommend that Level 1 be done
everywhere  [or almost everywhere?]

o        Therefore needs to be things that can be done on every site -
no exceptions unless the exception is in the success criteria.

-                    Important to access - not just relatively minor
usability tuning.  If these aren't done - people can't access the
information.  (e.g. no captions)

-                    Should not require much specific technical
expertise - since many sites we would like to achieve at least level 1
do not have much technical depth.

 RATIONALE:  If we make a Level 1 item that is unreachable for some
sites,  then they will not be able to make any claim of any kind as to
access.  This would greatly lower incentive to do other items.
Therefore all Level 1 items need to be doable on almost all or all sites
--  and doable on very large and existing sites.  This is the MINIMUM.
We encourage everyone to also do level 2.   (and to do Level 3 whereever
possible)

 

Level 2 

 

-                    Must be testable  (Machine or HIRR)

-                    Things that go beyond Level 1 but that can still be
done on essentially all content on all sites (if designed properly)

-                    Important and achievable on all sites without great
burden

RATIONALE:   These are things that we hope and encourage all sites to do
- and want these to be doable enough that we can ask all managers to
require (i.e. require Level 2 conformance) 

 

 

Level 3 

 

-                    Things that are testable (Machine or HIRR) 

-                    Things that can be done on all sites but that would
require extra effort and commitment.  

-                    Don't expect these to be done on most sites. But
would be done on all sites that really want to go the extra mile.

-                    This sit the first level that would include things
that require a certain level of control over the server or grasp of
programming/technologies fall here? (ex. a typical hosting service won't
allow you to do X or run Y script on their servers)

 

 

Additional / Advisory Items

-                    things that are not testable but are good ideas to
address this checkpoint  (good advice)

-                    things that can't be done on all sites

-                    things that might be done to target or tune a site
specifically for a disability group who needs this checkpoint

 

 

SHOULD THERE BE A LEVEL 4????

-                    only reason for a level 4 would be to put the
Advisory Items into a Level - instead of moving them to the
non-normative block of information (which would have to happen if they
were not success criteria).  Since some listing may ONLY list the
success criteria (and not the non-normative advisory section) making
these level 4 would keep them visible

-                    to make the advisory items into level 4 items
though, they would have to be played with to make them testable.   And
I'm not sure we can do that without making them harder to read and or
less effective.

 

 

NOTE:  As you go down the levels - you will pick up more and more people
who cannot use a site unless lower level items are implemented.  Thus
the lower levels make it easier for some people with disabilities, but
they will make it possible for others, particularly with multiple or
very severe disabilities.

 

 

 

Oh yes.

 

I also looked at the     MUST, SHOULD, MAY   and    CAN'T USE,    HARD
TO USE,     EASIER TO USE  formats of the WCAG 1.0 guidelines - and
couldn't make them work here.

 

One thing that we found in our work in the GL group - is that items that
make it easier to use for some people - are critical for others.   So
all the items end up being "MUST" or "CAN'T USE WITHOUT" for some
people.    

 

Thus we decided that all checkpoints need to have Level 1 items --  even
if they were hard to write and still make the Machine or HIRR
testability criteria.  So we end up with 

 

"the site  reviewed the content with the objectives below in mind"

or 

 "The site asserts that they reviewed the content with the objectives
below in mind" 

 

Or level 2 that are 

" the user asserts they considered this and did the best they felt was
possible and appropriate."

 

But we don't want to have checkpoints that don't have any testable
measures that can be applied across sites (or we make some sites that
cannot claim any conformance since L1 is minimum)

 

AND - we don't want to take some checkpoints off the table for L1 (or
they might not even show up on people's todo list).

 

 

Your thoughts?

 

 

Gregg

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

 

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