Re: Conforming alternative for mobile should not be Desktop

On 29/06/2016 11:55, Alastair Campbell wrote:

> TL;DR: Should we add something to the accessibility supported section
> (or somewhere) to make it clear that we have to assume people may only
> have access to small-screen/touch devices?

Personally, I think that's unnecessary (unless the thinking here is that 
sites may do a doorslam of "you must view this in your desktop browser" 
if a user tries to get to the "desktop" version). Maybe more generally a 
reminder that users and their user agents come in all shapes and sizes, 
with a variety of screen sizes, input mechanisms, etc, and that a 
site/app/content should not preclude any of these from working (which I 
thought WCAG already did, but maybe not as explicitly, in the general 
"accessibility supported" concept).

> You could see a link from a mobile site to desktop version as a loophole
> which significantly decreases the experience for some people, however, I
> think that’s a diminishing scenario. Even if it weren’t, I think desktop
> sites would rarely meet WCAG, especially once we get to 2.1.

Indeed. And if the "desktop" alternate did meet WCAG 2.1 (with any new 
SCs covering specific aspects like "must work for touchscreen users", 
"must work well for low-vision users that use zoom, or users on small 
screens", etc), then effectively there's no problem anyway (just the 
slightly puzzling approach that a site may have taken in splitting out 
two sites, when the "desktop" one also works just fine on "mobile" - but 
there may well be legitimate situations where having an alternative IS 
needed, such as a complex drag'n'drop interactive experience which can't 
be made accessible in a reasonable way, and instead offers an 
alternative version which makes it possible to achieve the same thing in 
a different accessible way).

> I think Patrick’s proposed addition makes sense, and *perhaps we could
> add a line in the ‘accessibility supported’ text* to deal with this
> assumption? I.e. accessibility supported should include various devices,
> it doesn’t just mean traditional desktop access.

I could certainly live with an addition to "accessibility supported" (as 
long as it's general enough and doesn't use "mobile" / "desktop" 
terminology, except to perhaps give a non-normative example).

P
-- 
Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2016 11:11:38 UTC