RE: Draft Introduction to WCAG 2.0

John Slatin wrote:

> Attached is a new draft Introduction to WCAG 2.0. 

Hi John,

I like your draft, it's understandable and easy to read. 

I hava a few comments:
* Introduction - The first paragraph seems to put a lot of focus on benefits
for other groups. Because you enumerate so many devices it shifts the focus
from the disabilities benefits to benefits for other users. I would prefer
it if the different types of disabilities that these guidelines address are
enumerated right there in the first paragraph, instead of in the second.
That way it's clear from the start what our primary goal is.

* Introduction - second paragraph. You wrote Deafness with a capital D and
blindness with a lower case b. I'm sure that you intended both to be
lower-case. It know it's just nitpicking but it might be a sensitive issue. 

* Last paragraph of Four principles: I would like to add a sentence to
explain that we're setting the bar. The entire paragraph would read
something like:
<proposal>The principles, guidelines, and success criteria represent
concepts that apply to all Web-based content. They explain what it means for
web content to be accessible, regardless of the technology used. They are
not specific to HTML, XML, or any other technology. This approach makes it
possible to apply WCAG 2.0 to a variety of situations and technologies,
including those that do not yet exist. </proposal>

* Non-normative/informative sections of WCAG 2.0. 
The first sentence talks about non-normative sections, the second about
informative. The fact that these are the non-normative sections isn't
explicit. I propose to change the first sentence to: <proposal>WCAG 2.0 also
includes material that is not normative but informative.</proposal>

* Audience and related documents
I think the shorthand for guidelines, levels and success criteria (GL 1.2 L1
SC1) is hard to read. We're just in the introduction here, people have not
even seen the guidelines.

* Conformance
I'm missing the statement that level 1 and 2 are thought to apply to all web
content while the level 3 items may not. Or has that disctinction become
overcome by events by putting more of L3 in the advisory section? I think it
would be great to do an end-to-end analysis of all the level 1 items, all
the level 2 items, all the level 3 items to see if they make sense as a
level or if there are things there that stand out as being either too hard
or too easy for that level.

* Baseline - example 4. The last sentence: <quote>The government specifies a
baseline that includes newer technologies that have limited support by
accessible user agents</quote> does not make any sense because you expect
that the user agents you're talking about are the ones provided by the
government. Propose to change to: <proposal>The government specifies a
baseline that includes newer technologies that are supported in the user
agents they have provided.  </proposal>

* Conformance requirements at the baseline.
I still have a problem with the sentence part that starts with 'assuming'
because it can be read in different ways. The first one: "assuming user
agent support for only the technologies in the specified baseline" can be
read as: "where you may pretend that a user agent exists that supports the
technologies in the specified baseline even if no such user agent exists
today" or can be read as "provided that there is a user agent out there that
only supports the baseline, and nothing more" or "if the users use a user
agent that supports only the technologies in the specified baseline". As I
understand it, only the third interpretation is meant. Proposal:
"if visited by a user agent that supports only the technologies in the
specified baseline".

* Conformance claims. I think "multi-modal content" is a difficult concept
to grasp. 

* Levels of conformance being claimed. The first sentence, <quote>The
conformance level for a delivery unit that contains authored units is equal
to the lowest conformance level claimed for the delivery unit content and
any of the authored units it contains - including claims of aggregated
units. </quote> needs further explanation. I propose to put a bit of
explanation in front of it: <proposal>Sometimes a delivery unit is
aggregated from multiple sources that each have their own level of
conformance. Such a source is called an authored unit. </proposal>

* Levels of conformance being claimed, second paragraph, last sentence
reads: <quote>Note that an exception arises if content negotiation is in
effect and the user agent requests a version of the content that does not
meet WCAG 2.0 at the asserted conformance level. </quote> That's tough to
understand. Propose to change to: <proposal>In the case of content
negotiation, WCAG 2.0 conformance is not required if the user agent requests
a version of the content that does not meet WCAG 2.0 at the specified
conformance level. </proposal>

* Scoping of conformance claims. This section seems to be pretty short
considering scoping has come up in a number of times as the solution. I
think this section should include more examples, like scoping out the
archive section of a website, scoping out audio-only games intended for
people with visual disabilities, etc. Perhaps it should also contain some
advise to policy makers on how to use scoping, or explicitely refer to a
document for policy makers.

* Authoring tools. This section feels lost here. Perhaps it should be moved
up to before 'conformance'.

Yvette Hoitink
Heritas, Enschede, the Netherlands
E-mail: y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl
WWW: http://www.heritas.nl

Received on Monday, 20 June 2005 09:50:31 UTC