RE: Key results and recommendations from Face to Face

Yeah - just so people aren't confused, what Gregg said is what I intended to say. The WCAG group should provide a _recommended_ baseline in a non-normative document. But it is only a recommendation, not binding on conformance, and authors can (and sometimes, should) use a different baseline. This is in preference to the other options I can think of that don't work:

* Provide a normative baseline - that's what we've been struggling with
* Fail to provide a baseline recommendation of any kind - then people will be struggling to implement WCAG "blind" - without adequate information, and baselines will be all over the map. They may be anyway, but at least a recommendation from us should help to consolidate them.

Michael

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gregg Vanderheiden [mailto:gv@trace.wisc.edu]
> Sent: March 24, 2005 11:40 AM
> To: Michael Cooper; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Key results and recommendations from Face to Face
> 
> 
> We can't have a baseline specified in a non-normative doc.   
> We can have
> suggestions for what people would use, and that can be 
> non-normative since
> it is just a suggestion and can be followed or ignored while still
> conforming to WCAG.  But a baseline that is specified by us 
> is a normative
> item and needs to be in a normative doc.  
>  
> Gregg
> 
>  -- ------------------------------ 
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
> Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
> Director - Trace R & D Center 
> University of Wisconsin-Madison 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf
> Of Michael Cooper
> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2005 9:26 AM
> To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Key results and recommendations from Face to Face
> 
> Hmm... I echo Jason's concern that this essentially says 
> "always provide
> HTML backups, forever". I would prefer that we take the 
> approach of having a
> non-normative, WCAG-recommended baseline, at a level above 
> the techniques,
> probably in the document currently known as Addenda. This 
> baseline would be
> for World Wide Web use, i.e., public sites with an international or
> unspecified audience, and would be the one we strongly 
> recommend authors use
> unless they have specific reasons they can use a higher 
> baseline. In the
> year 2005, this baseline may say what Wendy suggests, provide 
> fallbacks for
> scripts, plugins, images, etc. In the year 2007, we might be 
> able to change
> the recommended baseline and say "scripts and plugin X do not need
> fallbacks, but other plugins and images still do". This way, 
> we can provide
> a recommendation that is not normative but we strongly expect 
> authors to
> follow, and is current to the technology of the day. 
> 
> I know there are concerns about fractioning of standards if 
> we do this -
> even though sites all conform to WCAG 2, they use different 
> baselines (or
> some use the old recommended one and some use the new 
> recommended one) - and
> we need to talk through that issue. But I think we're going to get
> fractioning no matter what we do, and this allows us to make concrete
> recommendations while still enabling implementors to make the most
> appropriate choice. We do have to trust them to make a smart 
> choice, but I
> don't see a way around that.
> 
> Michael
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Wendy Chisholm
> >
> > 3. If a decision maker *can not* make further assumptions about the 
> > audience (because the decision maker is publishing to the 
> whole Web or 
> > doesn't have control over user tools), then the content is 
> functional 
> > when technologies are turned off or not supported *or* an 
> alternative 
> > must be provided.
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 24 March 2005 16:57:17 UTC