Re: warning category for techniques / failures.

Hi Alastair,
Sure the presentation does state "availability of reliable accessibility guidance" as an assumption. 
I did not say "techniques misapplied" is a failure  but a distinct category that  accessibility testers should include in their report. It will not be practical for the WG to attempt to list all "techniques misapplied". But it will help testers if the WG recognizes it as a category with a brief description and a handful of examples and advise designers / developers to guard against these situations. Testers too will have a category against which specific issues can be recorded.

I am not sure about the warning situations you raise:
Data table without a visible caption: if there is no visual title for the table or is within a section that has a heading that clearly describes the section's topic, a caption is not needed. Adding one will change the UI and author's intent. 
Form control without a visible label: e.g. Search form with text box and Search button: 
I have maintained, visually the search button does double duty conveying purpose of the button and a cue for the text box. Accessibility testers turn a blind eye to 3.3.2 in a sense. In this situation title (H65) is sufficient goes the guidance. 

Fieldset / legend for group of controls: If the group has no visible common label required that helps to more fully convey the control's purpose, a legend is not needed. Yes, a fieldset (without legend) will help some users in this situation too. That will involve a small change to the presentation by default. 
Use of 'click here' / 'read more’.: This is a 2.4.4 failure if  it is not in a para or list or table etc. or has  no title or aria-describedby or aria-label.

And so forth. So I find it difficult to support a separate category for such  "Warnings".
Again,  assumption#1 of that presentation refers to applying the correct technique in the particular situation;  most techniques are grouped by situation they apply to.
I would like the WG to not lose  sight of the thought discussed  in a Nov-2015 meeting and documented: "Best practices may become a category of output when new guidelines, SC, techniques are published".
I hope the description of a best practice in that CSUN presentation might help in this regard.
Thanks and best wishes,
Sailesh Panchang

--------------------------------------------
On Wed, 5/4/16, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: warning category for techniques / failures.
 To: "Sailesh Panchang" <spanchang02@yahoo.com>
 Cc: "GLWAI Guidelines WG org" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, "IG - WAI Interest Group List list" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
 Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2016, 10:54 AM
 
 Hi Sailesh,
 
 I see the issue you describe,
 but I wonder if it is something that WCAG can address as
 you’ve suggested?
 
 There
 might be some overlap between “warnings" (as
 discussed) and "Techniques misapplied”, but the
 difference appears to be the level of knowledge of the
 author.
 
 Based on the
 examples:
 
 - "Technique
 Misapplied” implies the author knows something about
 accessibility (or thinks they do), but hasn’t applied it
 well.
 - “Warning” implies the author
 doesn’t know something, and hasn’t included a feature
 needed, or has included an inaccessible feature.
 
 Warnings should be failures
 which may not always be failures in all circumstances, but
 I’m not clear that the Techniques Misapplied are failures
 under the success criteria? For example, ARIA landmarks not
 covering all the content isn’t derived from the SC (even
 with David’s new proposed failure).
 
 I would have thought that mis-application is
 solved by showing people how to do it properly?
 
 I can’t see a scenario where
 designers/developers would be looking for information like
 “have I got this form label right?”. It is usually
 “how do I make form controls accessible”. If they
 mis-apply it they aren’t checking and aren’t reading
 about it.
 
 I don’t think
 the WCAG techniques/failures is the right place for that
 information, as you said it is the flip-side of
 best-practices, which is also something that doesn’t fit
 in the techniques/failures.
 
 Cheers,
 
 -Alastair
 
 
 
 
 
 Sailesh Panchang wrote:
 
 >Hello All,
 >"Techniques misapplied" is a more
 pressing category that needs to be introduced.
 >Misapplication or incorrect / incomplete
 application of a technique  results in content that is
 meant to be more accessible (because efforts have been spent
 in making it accessible) less so.
 >The
 underlying principle for "Techniques misapplied" 
 is sort of stated in S508 1194.21 (d) that states: 
 >"Applications shall not disrupt or
 disable activated features of other products that are
 identified as accessibility features,..." 
 >
 >Consider the following
 examples. These  break the ability of users to use a
 feature of AT. Or, users cannot use a feature to reliably
 navigate or operate or understand content. It is likely some
 other technique may have been employed to pass an SC but the
 presence of"techniques misapplied" introduces
 accessibility problems for users.
 >Examples:
 >1. Using
 title attribute instead of explicit label association for
 form control ... or doing both!
 >2.
 Setting a title attribute on a link that duplicates link
 text
 >3. Including an element's role
 in its name.
 >e.g. alt="Apply
 button" on an INPUT type=image button  is read as
 "Apply button button" by screen readers
 >4. Image link and text link for a product:
 side by side
 >5. Setting identical table
 caption and summary attribute on a data table
 >6. Incomplete use of ARIA landmarks:
 failing to mark main content and only using one or two
 landmarks like banner, contentinfo, search
 >7. Using different heading tags across site
 at start of main content
 >(see 
 Technique H42 examples : proper use of headings)
 >8. Inconsistency: target of skip to content
 link and placement of main landmark
 >
 >This was covered at CSUN:
 >http://www.mindoversight.com/csun/2016/Overview.html
 >Thanks,
 >Sailesh
 Panchang

Received on Wednesday, 4 May 2016 15:56:30 UTC