Re: Comments on Perspectives on usability and accessibility draft

Thanks, Dave!

We are working through your comments along with comments from other reviewers, and discussing issues with EOWG. We hope to have a revised draft within a couple of weeks.

Best,
~Shawn & Shadi


On 11/23/2010 5:46 PM, DavidSloan wrote:
> Hi Shawn, Shadi,
>
> Thanks for the opportunity to comment on the draft document "Web
> Accessibility and Usability Working Together."
>
> My thoughts are below. Please feel free to get in touch if you need any
> clarification on my comments.
>
> Best wishes,
> Dave
>
>
> Overall, it's a very useful addition to the WAI suite of documents, and
> should help to clarify the relationship of usability and UCD to
> accessibility.
>
> Here are a few specific comments - apologies for the pedantic nature of
> most of the suggested corrections! I've ordered them by section for ease
> of reference.
>
> Introduction
>
> I'm not sure about the sentence:
>
> "In most situations there is no need to differentiate between usability
> and accessibility, because their goals are complimentary."
>
> At a minimum, should be 'complementary'? But, semantically speaking, if
> the roles are complementary (i.e. two distinct parts that together make
> a whole), then there *would* be a need to distinguish between them so as
> not to leave any gaps?
>
> Perhaps a rewrite could be:
>
> "In most situations there is no need to differentiate between usability
> and accessibility, because their goals are ultimately the same - to
> ensure that as many as possible of a web site's target audience can use
> the site for its intended purpose."
>
> # Understanding Accessibility
>
> The first paragraph starts with a very firm, definitive statement:
> "Accessibility is about ensuring an equivalent user experience for
> people with disabilities."
>
> But the second paragraph says " Some accessibility guidelines primarily
> meet the needs of people with disabilities." Which would beg a reader to
> ask - "ok, so what do the remaining accessibility guidelines do?"
>
> For me, the two sentences above don't scan well. Perhaps what should be
> meant in the first section is that "Accessibility is about firstly
> ensuring an equivalent user experience for people with disabilities -
> and secondly for those disabled by their browsing environment."
> ('firstly' and 'secondly' could be replaced by 'primarily' and
> 'secondarily' if there needs to be a hierarchy)
>
> This rewrite would mean the second paragraph makes more sense as is, and
> also introduces the 'other beneficiaries' argument expanded in the third
> paragraph.
>
> # Understanding Usability and User-Centered Design (UCD)
>
> In this section, could there be a direct link to a page on the ISO 9241
> standard (or maybe reference UserFocus' Bluffer's Guide to 9241)?
>
> # Real People
>
> This is the most important, and powerful section of the whole page, and
> is very well put across. Maybe you could emphasise "People with
> disabilities effectively interacting with and contributing to the Web is
> the end goal" using appropriate markup or making it a standalone
> paragraph?
>
> # Working Together with Accessibility
>
> Minor grammatical issue in the first paragraph - the content in
> parentheses beginning (Whereas...) is not a sentence - so I would either
> replace the parentheses with a comma, extending the previous sentence,
> or replace "Whereas" with "By contrast, " and remove the parentheses.
>
> The first of the three issues - perhaps there could be a more explicit
> invitation for people to contribute research data that
> supports/questions/potentially extends WCAG? If the goal is to avoid
> fragmentation of effort and multiple sets of design guidelines, one
> action should be to direct research activity that generates valid
> evidence towards improving WCAG rather that presenting
> independent/conflicting guidelines.
>
> The second of the three issues - I'm not sure this sufficiently
> emphasises the point being made, which I think is that independent
> efforts to create web design guidelines might perpetuate placing
> inappropriate or unnecessary demands or restrictions on content authors
> when the issue to be resolved is at the user agent level?
>
>
>
> The University of Dundee is a Scottish Registered Charity, No. SC015096.
>
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 24 November 2010 15:07:28 UTC