Checkpoint 5.3

Although I haven't had time to develop a detailed proposal in response to
my action item in this area, I have considered the issues while reading
through the UAAG 1.0 last call draft. As Ian indicated during his
contribution to the WCAG meeting several weeks ago, UAAG 1.0 explicitly
acknowledges the possibility that UAAG conformance profiles can be cited,
as minimal requirements, in other specifications. In WCAG 2.0, this is not
as straightforward as it may seem, as a result of the UAAG 1.0 profile
system and the diversity of technologies in which WCAG 2.0-conformant
content can be written. My observations are as follows:

1. The obvious requirement would be:
Level 1 success criteria:
Every technology or feature used in the content must be supported by at
least one user agent that conforms to Level A of the User Agent
Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. If the content includes images, multimedia,
events, etc., then the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 conformance
profile of every conforming user agent must include the corresponding
(content type or event) label, and the implementation must satisfy the
applicable requirements as set forth in UAAG 1.0.

We might want to add further requirements regarding profile labels here.

At levels 2 and 3, the requirements would become "Level double-a" and
"level tripple-a" of UAAG 1.0, respectively.

Also, we would need to specify that this requirement only applies to the
content as delivered to the user agent, not to any (possibly different)
format in which it is stored at the originating server or an intermediary.
As a larger issue, we need to decide whether this kind of constraint
applies to our guidelines generally. If so, it would run approximately as
follows:

Where content can be delivered to a user agent in any of a number of
formats depending upon content negotiation, user configuration settings or
other parameters, these guidelines apply directly to the content as
delivered to the user agent. There must exist at least one version of the
content, as delivered to the user agent, which conforms to these
guidelines at or above the minimum level. This does not preclude, however,
the provision of alternative content formats in response to content
negotiation, configuration settings or other parameters. Indeed it is
recognized that the provision of a range of alternative formats may
enhance the accessibility of the content to specific groups of users,
thereby enabling the content to meet a higher conformance level in respect
of relevant checkpoints, so long as such conformance claim is restricted
to the relevant version of the content as delivered to the user agent.

This isn't good wording, but I hope it communicates the underlying ideas
effectively. I realize that I should
not be combining ideas in this way, but it seems inevitable under the
circumstances that both issues have to be considered.

Received on Thursday, 19 September 2002 01:44:11 UTC