Proposed: 5.x Enable Reporting of User Agent Accessibility Faults

Following our non-action item from the conference call, Jaime Rice tackled the task of writing the first draft yesterday and we made some revisions and added another example today.  The result follows:

5.x Enable Reporting of User Agent Accessibility Faults: Users can report faults in accessibility support within the user agent using a built-in facility for that purpose. (Level AAA)

Intent of Success Criterion 5.X :

Users of assistive technology such as screen readers may find that their assistive technology may not be compatible fully with their Web browser, or that the browser may not accessibly render content that has been authored in compliance with WCAG, resulting in a loss of information or convenience. In these instances, users with disabilities will benefit from being able to easily file a report with the user agent vendor to inform them of the incompatibility, similar to the feedback mechanisms currently available in some user agents to file bug reports. 

Examples of Success Criterion 5.X :

Alice is a visually impaired college student who frequently uses a refreshable Braille display with her Web browser on her laptop. Usually, she does not encounter issues with displaying text from her browser on her refreshable braille display. However, occasionally she experiences difficulty with elements such as drop-down boxes or complex menus, where the text is only partially rendered on the braille display. Alice notices this incompatibility and navigates to the feedback section of her browser. After providing some basic information (such as AT device and computer hardware used), Alice is able to describe the problem she encountered and submit the report to the browser vendor.

Fred has low vision and uses screen magnification software to enlarge displayed information and alter color contrast.  While reading content on a Web site in compliance with WCAG, Fred discovers that the scroll bars are not visible and he cannot scroll further down the page.  Unable to read the information he needs, Fred selects the Feedback option from his browser's Tools menu, and is presented with a dialog where he can select which information to transmit to the browser vendor. He selects to include the current URL of the page he is trying to view, system information including OS  and screen magnifier version, and enters a description of the problem he is having.  Though not required, Fred chooses to provide his email address so that the vendor may contact him for further details or to provide a workaround.

Received on Friday, 6 July 2012 17:58:32 UTC