Re: Last call comments from WCAG working group

Response in JRG2:
At 01:18 PM 12/7/2000 -0500, Charles McCathieNevile wrote:
>On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Jon Gunderson wrote:
>
>   Responses in JRG:
>
>   JRG: If the developer is relying on the VM for some accessibility
>   functionalities required by UAAG, the developer may only be able to claim
>   conformance for certain operating systems that they can demonstrate
>   actually meet the guidelines.  Therefore they may not be able to claim
>   conformance for every OS with a Java VM.
>CMN
>But they can claim conformance with "any conforming Java VM".

JRG2:
I think that the product needs to be tested with each java VM they for 
which they claim conformance and since different OS have different built-in 
accessibility features the Java VM may vary from OS to OS even from the 
same VM developer.  Also I am not sure the Java specification is written in 
such a way that a VM developer can claim conformance.  I maybe wrong, but I 
doubt anyone has taken the time to define such a claim mechanism.  Even if 
they did accessibility I am sure would not be part of the conformance 
mechanism.

I think in the case of Java VMs there are two issues.
1. Does a particular java VM support the accessibility features of the java 
specification
2. Does the user agent rely on java VM accessibility features for accessibility

The bottom line for conformance is that the developer can demonstrate they 
have satisfied the checkpoints for a particular level of conformance with 
some stated group of software and OS.  User agents written in Java may 
require the user to limit their claims to only the VMs they can demonstrate 
provide the functionalities for conformance.  Remember in Java there are 
often more than one VM available for a particular OS (notably windows: at 
least SUN, IBM and Microsoft )and accessibility compatibility of the host 
OS of these different VMs maybe different.  The conformance claim must 
provide the information needed for the product to behave as a conforming 
user agent.

For Java based user agents, this needs to include the version of Java and 
the specification of which java VMs and operating systems the features have 
been tested for conformance.





Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP
Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology
Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services
MC-574
College of Applied Life Studies
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
1207 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL  61820

Voice: (217) 244-5870
Fax: (217) 333-0248

E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu

WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund
WWW: http://www.w3.org/wai/ua

Received on Thursday, 7 December 2000 13:41:47 UTC