Re: should we be trying to include all disabilities equally?

Michael Pluke wrote:
>
> Hi Lisa
>
> I’m not sure that this should be the question. I think a survey would 
> not prove anything. I’d be utterly astonished if many (or any) would 
> suggest that WCAG 2.1 should exclude cognitive disabilities from its 
> scope!
>
Correct. We are all working hard to help facilitate the inclusion of 
COGA SCs into the new guidelines. Yes, its hard - but if we pull 
together we may surprise ourselves with what we can achieve.

Thanks

Josh
>
> I think that everyone would like WCAG to address as many accessibility 
> barriers as possible, irrespective of disability. For example, many 
> people will have difficulty navigating and understanding content if it 
> is not well structured or if that structure cannot be determined. 
> Existing SCs that address this problem will benefit users with a range 
> of disabilities, including those with cognitive disabilities. So it is 
> already wrong to say that WCAG 2.0 does not address the needs of 
> people with cognitive disabilities.
>
> The realities are that there are some comparatively easy (as well as 
> universally beneficial and testable) ways to address some of these 
> accessibility barriers (currently already in WCAG 2.0) and in other 
> cases the problems are much more complex, difficult to precisely 
> define and have potential solutions that could benefit one user but be 
> a potential problem for many other users (and/or service developers) 
> (some of these are AAA in WCAG 2.0). The unfortunate reality is that 
> there seem to be a disproportionate number of barriers for people with 
> cognitive disabilities that don’t have easy resolutions.
>
> I certainly couldn’t name anyone who I think is actively trying to 
> exclude cognitive disabilities – I think everyone thinks we should be 
> trying to include them. But there is a big difference between trying 
> and succeeding and, despite our best efforts, it is proving difficult 
> to find solutions that meet the standards necessary for inclusion in 
> WCAG 2.1. Several people have made constructive suggestions to try to 
> help change some of the cognitive SC proposals to make them more 
> acceptable.
>
> So I think WCAG 2.1 will, like WCAG 2.0 will be about disabilities 
> without explicit exclusions. Like many I will be disappointed if it 
> does not add many SCs specifically aimed at people with cognitive 
> disabilities – but if we cannot draft SCs that meet all of the 
> necessary criteria for inclusion in WCAG, that may end up being the 
> reality.
>
> Best regards
>
> Mike
>
> *From:*lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com]
> *Sent:* 04 July 2017 12:50
> *To:* Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>
> *Cc:* WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
> *Subject:* should we be trying to include all disabilities equally?
>
> Hi Andrew
>
> Just to clarify, do we agree that we that we should be trying to 
> include all disabilities? I think we need to know if we have consensus 
> on this issue.
>
> I am Ok saying we do not. Then we know that this is a specification 
> about some disabilities and not others.
>
> All the best
>
> Lisa Seeman
>
> LinkedIn<http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, 
> Twitter<https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
> ---- On Fri, 30 Jun 2017 20:16:05 +0300 *Andrew Kirkpatrick 
> <*akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>*>*wrote ----
>
>     Lisa,
>
>     Our focus as a group is on making the best standard that we can,
>     to provide the best guidance for content providers to enable them
>     to make content accessible to as many people as possible. The term
>     “best” has a number of factors that contribute to it, and these
>     are the factors that consume a lot of working group time to get right.
>
>     These factors roll up to the Success Criteria Requirements
>     (https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/WCAG_2.1_Success_Criteria) that we
>     worked on and are using as part of our process for determining the
>     readiness of SC proposals. Testability, implementability, backward
>     compatibility, and more are important considerations that the WG
>     grapples with whether a proposal will result in a success criteria
>     that the W3C membership will approve of as part of WCAG 2.1.
>     Ultimately, if W3C members don’t believe that the SC within WCAG
>     2.1 are ready for standardization, WCAG 2.1 won’t be approved and
>     we will wait longer for an update to WCAG 2.0.
>
>     We will inevitably face questions from W3C member companies about
>     why we didn’t go farther to support more users with disabilities,
>     including people with cognitive disabilities. This is why we have
>     the process – so we have a basis for the discussion, review, and
>     decisions on proposals that can help reviewers understand that we
>     are doing the best we can to define high-quality success criteria
>     and that there is more left to do to support users with various
>     disabilities. Part of what we hope comes out of the group’s work
>     is greater clarity on where that work needs to be done by the
>     Working Group and when it needs to be done by assistive
>     technologies, user agent technologies, other standards groups, or
>     some combination.
>
>     To answer your question, should we be calling attention to things
>     that may be consider discriminatory: Of course we should, but I
>     think that we need to be very care to differentiate between
>     calling out something that may produce what could be viewed as a
>     discriminatory result (for example, “if we don’t have this SC in
>     WCAG 2.1 that will be discrimination toward people with a specific
>     disability”) versus an argument that is based on an attempt to
>     exclude people (for example, “we don’t have any customers with
>     dyslexia so we can’t support this SC”). The latter is within the
>     control of the group directly where we can, as you suggest, reject
>     arguments based on this type of thinking. The former is relevant
>     because the goal of WCAG is to provide a standard that authors,
>     organizations, and regulations can reference as a tool to provide
>     guidance on how to include as many people as possible, but we know
>     that no accessibility standard is capable of addressing 100% of
>     all people with disabilities.
>
>     With WCAG 2.1 and moving forward, our goal is to expand the set of
>     users with disabilities that benefit from web sites and
>     applications that conform to WCAG standards. We will not close the
>     gap between where we are with WCAG 2.0 and all users with WCAG
>     2.1, but we will make progress (including for people with
>     cognitive disabilities), and we will continue to do so with
>     successive releases.
>
>     Thanks,
>
>     AWK
>
>     Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
>     Group Product Manager, Accessibility
>
>     Adobe
>
>     akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>
>
>     http://twitter.com/awkawk
>
>     *From: *"lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>"
>     <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>>
>     *Date: *Thursday, June 29, 2017 at 16:15
>     *To: *Andrew Kirkpatrick
>     <akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>>
>     *Cc: *WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
>     *Subject: *Re: Professional communication / Keeping emotions in check
>
>     Among the legitimate criticism , I have been called out for
>     calling attention to things that may be considered discriminatory.
>
>     DO we think pointing this out is inappropriate? Surely reducing
>     accommodation for reasons that may be considered discriminatory
>     against users with cognitive disabilities (or low vision or any
>     other disability) is an extremely important and relevant issue. We
>     may disagree on whether specific arguments are in fact
>     discriminatory.  (Is it legitimate to say we *should not *try to
>     accommodate people who can not understand the language on a page?)
>     but it is an important issue for us to discuss.
>
>     If we can not call them out we run the risk of accepting these
>     arguments without challenging their legitimacy. If we decide to do
>     that I think it should be a consensus  decision. Personally, I
>     think when we are discussing to include or exclude an SC,
>     arguments that have a significant  discriminatory aspect should
>     not be accepted  in wcag.
>
>     That said it does not imply that anyone who makes these arguments
>     are bad people etc. We are used to thinking of people with
>     cognitive disabilities as outside our target audience or circles
>     and it will be a difficult road to change these attitudes,
>     including inside ourselves.
>
>     All the best
>
>     Lisa Seeman
>
>     LinkedIn<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fil.linkedin.com%2Fin%2Flisaseeman%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7C39c98464aaa645f0220d08d4bf2b90c3%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636343641211932197&sdata=MCXD2y9QKnrNr%2FwRYq40I%2F6EZNgoy0ezToStpZS3ta0%3D&reserved=0>,
>     Twitter
>     <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FSeemanLisa&data=02%7C01%7C%7C39c98464aaa645f0220d08d4bf2b90c3%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636343641211932197&sdata=%2F87B0X8Aa8If9iOeAx%2BTfK7KwjRBrGKyjVFWuZJELus%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>     ---- On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 20:04:51 +0300 *Andrew
>     Kirkpatrick<akirkpat@adobe.com <mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>>* wrote
>     ----
>
>         AGWG’ers,
>
>         Thanks to all for their ongoing work on WCAG 2.1. It is
>         difficult and important work, and often tests our intellects,
>         energy, and patience.
>
>         I firmly believe that everyone is participating in the group
>         because he or she believes that our work can improve
>         accessibility to web content. Naturally, not everyone has the
>         same expectations about how dramatically WCAG 2.1 can impact
>         end-users, whether we will be able to add nine new success
>         criteria or 40.
>
>         We need to be able to have reasonable and appropriate
>         conversation in email and on the teleconferences. People
>         should expect to be able to be heard, and if anyone feels that
>         they are not they should let Josh/Michael/me know. Similarly,
>         people need to let others state their piece.
>
>         On the call today we had a level of interruption and raised
>         voices that did not meet the behavioral expectations for group
>         participation. We will reach out to the group members involved
>         to discuss this, but want to remind all members of the
>         importance of holding ourselves to a high standard of
>         professional communication.
>
>         Thanks,
>
>         AWK
>
>         Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
>         Group Product Manager, Accessibility
>
>         Adobe
>
>         akirkpat@adobe.com <mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>
>
>         https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fawkawk&data=02%7C01%7C%7C39c98464aaa645f0220d08d4bf2b90c3%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636343641211932197&sdata=KeMVZTL%2BRnWJQCIkR6pQkfZ4CAomQS943GNDawz2sdE%3D&reserved=0
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>

-- 
Joshue O Connor
Director | InterAccess.ie