Must "technologies being used" be in a SC's text, if that SC has support in 2 technologies?

Hi Andrew, Josh, and all,

SUMMARY:

A key point of contention that likely needs to be settle before
consensus can be reached on Issue 78 (Adapting Text) SC is:

Must the phrase "technologies being used" be in a SC's text, if that
SC has support in 2 major technologies, namely HTML and PDF?

If we can come to agreement on this point, it may help move the
discussion forward.

DETAILS:

We included the "technologies being used" (1.4.5 language) in Proposal
H [1] to address scoping. Andrew's proposal [2] from last Thursday
also uses it.

Some people favor using that language. But some do not.

People in the Low Vision Task Force (LVTF) have concerns and would
like it removed. For example, the following are excerpts from the
April 20, 2017 LVTF minutes [3]:

* Shawn H: "+1 for not supporting giving a pass for technologies that
don't support it !"
* Stephen R: "Claim is if technology can support user styles then the
SC is a pass, and I have concerns with that"
* Stephen R: "Notes distinction between user agent support vs.
technology support, sees that as the issue"
* Stephen R: "Big difference is we're giving a blanket pass with no
stipulations behind it"
* Jim A: "We want the one that talks about accessibility supported,
and leaves out the technology stuff"
* Glenda S: "My vote: Go with "L" version. Dropping font for now (to
get this SC in)."

In addition, on the April 15 survey Jason said [4], "...the term
'technologies being used' in Proposal H is problematic. 'Technologies'
in WCAG generally refer to implementation technologies (HTML, CSS,
JavaScript, etc.), not to optional capabilities of user agents,
whereas I think the intention here is to refer to the latter."

However, on April 14 regarding leaving out that verbiage and going
with Proposal L [5], Gregg wrote [6], "the language, 'Except for
images of text and captions, text styles of the page can be overridden
as follows with no loss of essential content or functionality' assumes
that all technologies allow this - and therefore outlaws all
technologies that do not. So, anything that doesn't have style sheets
or similar mechanism will not be able to conform to 2.1?"

To which I replied, "As Bruce pointed out, it goes to accessibility support."

Gregg went on to say, "That is not the meaning of accessibility
support. If the author cannot do it because there is no way to do it
with the technology they are using — then it means that the author
cannot use that technology and conform to WCAG 2.1. So that means 2.1
is in effect barring use of a technology. We tried to not create SC
that could not be met with all major technologies used in Web pages
today."

Alastair later asked [7], "Can we define those for 2017? HTML etc.,
yes. PDF, yes. What else would you call a 'major web technology'
today?"

So, as I said at the beginning of this email, my question is:

Must the phrase "technologies being used" be in a SC's text, if that
SC has support in 2 technologies, namely HTML and PDF?

If we can come to agreement on that point, it may help move the
discussion forward.

Thank you all very much.

Kindest Regards,
Laura

[1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Issue_78_Options#Proposal_H_text_reads:
[2]  https://rawgit.com/w3c/wcag21/AWK_adapting-text/guidelines/#adapting-text
[3] https://www.w3.org/2017/04/20-lvtf-minutes.html
[4] https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/AdaptingTextSurvey/results
[5] https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Issue_78_Options#Proposal_L_text_reads:
[6] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2017AprJun/0196.html
[7] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2017AprJun/0270.html

-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Sunday, 23 April 2017 14:07:01 UTC