Re: [EXT] Recent discussion of WCAG A, AA, and AAA: The Graduated Scale

Building on David Fazio and Lionel Wolberger’s insights, we might also want to adjust the criteria to go beyond assistive technology’s ability to work. Regarding cognitive / trauma considerations there are additional aspects to evaluate. Do we have any discussions with COGA or offered asynchronous input to ensure that conformance levels don’t leave those with TBI, PTSD, etc. out?

Kindly,
Jen

Jennifer Strickland ツ
(they/them, she/her)
Senior Human Centered Accessibility Engineer
Collaboration and Social Computing (L178)
The MITRE Corporation
Email: jstrickland@mitre.org<mailto:jstrickland@mitre.org>
Cell: 571-319-2230



From: Lionel Wolberger <lionel@userway.org>
Date: Thursday, June 20, 2024 at 7:11 AM
To: W3C WAI Accessible Platform Architectures <public-apa@w3.org>
Subject: [EXT] Recent discussion of WCAG A, AA, and AAA: The Graduated Scale
Fazio raised questions a while back about the three levels of conformance, A, AA and AAA, and how they are assessed. Pardon if this is duplicated. WCAG's assessors of greater to lesser conformance can be summarized as follows (full text


Fazio raised questions a while back about the three levels of conformance, A, AA and AAA, and how they are assessed. Pardon if this is duplicated. WCAG's assessors of greater to lesser conformance can be summarized as follows (full text below):

  *   Essential: SC not met? AT won't work.
  *   Satisfiable: SC can be met by all relevant content.
  *   Reasonable: Skill to meet the SC achievable in one week's time.
  *   Limits imposed: The SC limits on look & feel and/or function
  *   Workaroundable: Workarounds exist, if the SC fails
WCAG does not provide a mapping of these qualitative assessors to the A, AA and AAA levels.

Full text:

The URL, https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/Understanding/conformance#conformance-claims

Full quote:
Heading: Understanding Levels of Conformance



The success criteria were assigned to one of the three levels of conformance by the working group after taking into consideration a wide range of interacting issues. Some of the common factors evaluated when setting the level included:

  *   whether the success criterion is essential (in other words, if the success criterion isn't met, then even assistive technology can't make content accessible)
  *   whether it is possible to satisfy the success criterion for all Web sites and types of content that the success criterion would apply to (e.g., different topics, types of content, types of Web technology)
  *   whether the success criterion requires skills that could reasonably be achieved by the content creators (that is, the knowledge and skill to meet the success criterion could be acquired in a week's training or less)
  *   whether the success criterion would impose limits on the "look & feel" and/or function of the Web page. (limits on function, presentation, freedom of expression, design or aesthetic that the success criterion might place on authors)
  *   whether there are no workarounds if the success criterion is not met



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