RE: Proposed ednote to clarify captions and transcript

Michael Cooper wrote:

> In discussion of Guideline 1.2 Level 1 Success Criterion 1 
> there was a proposal to move this to Level 2. The group 
> agreed to keep it at level 1, but noted some concerns. I 
> think it would be fair to say most of us feel that a text 
> alternative at Level 1 is definately needed, but a 
> synchronized text alternative aka captions seems like a high 
> bar. We noted captions are a form of text alternative as 
> provided under Guideline 1.1, therefore the requirement to 
> provide some sort of text alternative already exists. We 
> thought it would be best to put in an editorial note for now 
> to clarify this. I propose the following wording for an 
> editorial note to 1.2 L1 SC 1:
> 
> The Working Group understands captions to be a form of text 
> alternative as required under Guideline 1.1. The requirement 
> stated here does not specifically state that text 
> alternatives must be synchronized at Level 1, which may be a 
> high burden. There will be further exploration of this issue 
> and clarification of the intent of the success criteria in a 
> future draft.
> 
Hi Michael and the rest of the group,

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who's concerned with requiring
captions at level 1 for all multimedia and that that concern will be
explicitely noted in the next draft. I hope that will encourage new comments
on that problem so we can explore that problem further.

However, I don't understand the ednote as you proposed it. As I understand
it, guideline 1.1 already says non-text content should have text
alternatives (1.1 applies to multimedia as well, right?). Guideline 1.2 is
about the requirements that text alternatives for multimedia need to be
synchronized. But now the ednote says the 1.2 SC do NOT specifically require
that text alternatives must be synchronized at level 1, which to me totally
contradicts the SC text (captions are synchronized by definition).

Alternative proposal:
<proposal>
The Working Group understands that text alternatives for multimedia are
already required by guideline 1.1. In guideline 1.2, we require
<em>synchronized</em> text alternatives in the form of captions. We
understand that providing synchronized alternatives may be a high burden on
authors and may not be necessary in all situations. There will be further
exploration of this issue and clarification of the intent of the success
criteria in a future draft.</proposal>

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

Received on Friday, 24 June 2005 08:45:38 UTC