FW: G3ict comment on section 1.3.4 “Identify Common Purpose” in relation to persons with cognitive disabilities

Hi,

I am forwarding a comment from the President and Executive Director of the UN-organisation G3ict, see below.

Dear Susanna,

I wanted to follow-up on your question regarding section 1.3.4 “Identify Common Purpose” of the success criteria currently discussed in the context of WCAG 2.1.

From our perspective at G3ict, this is an extremely important success criterion in relation to the development of adaptive interfaces and assistive technology for persons with cognitive impairments.  In particular, assistive interfaces may help distinguish main content from related information.  This requirement allows tools to process the main information so that content is focused on, explained, translated to easy-to-read or supplemented with synonyms, images and illustrations.
We see several imperatives for the inclusion of this success criteria in relation to the trends in ICT accessibility and assistive technologies developments which we witness in the context of our global advocacy activities:



  *   The high prevalence of cognitive disabilities among senior users prone to cognitive overload and memory losses necessitates using familiar interfaces, icons, and formats adapted to their cognitive abilities and preferences.  Advanced intelligent interfaces providing automated adjustments to each user preferences are a fertile area of innovation and likely to succeed on a large scale.  Aging patterns around the world, and the difficulties experienced by large public and private sector organizations such as e-government, financial services, e-commerce or transportation web services in serving seniors would seem to be strong considerations in that regard.


  *   The global trend towards adopting smart interfaces and assistive technologies helping learners access relevant contents among the very large population of students in Special Education programs, a majority of whom experience cognitive or learning disabilities.



  *   The potential to improve the experience of all users by leveraging cognitive accessibility features  addressing widespread permanent or situational cognitive disabilities among the general population such as limited time or focus to comprehend information, memory loss, limited language abilities or attention deficit.


Given deadlines, I cannot stress enough in the limit of this short email how important it is for item 1.3.4 “Identify Common Purpose”  to be included among testable criteria for the next generation of Web Accessibility Guidelines.  Such criteria will help policy makers referencing WCAG to better factor in the needs of persons with cognitive disabilities which represent in most countries the largest segments of the population of persons with disabilities and remain very much underserved.

I hope that the above clarifies our position on this topic.

With best regards,

Axel