Re: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals for WCAG 2.1

Well said! I certainly second your praise for Lisa's tireless work to get this done.

Best regards

Mike

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On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 11:02 AM +0000, "Steve Lee" <steve@opendirective.com<mailto:steve@opendirective.com>> wrote:

Stepping back a bit, I don't think we should be too hard on ourselves here. Creating succinct, easily applied and testable SCs is a really tough job for Coga!!

We, the task force, have put a lot of effort into collecting, researching and reviewing requirements and techniques for a massively varied group of users, Somehow, we need to boil that down to a set of SC with just one or 2 lines of text that is designed to be applied generally and precisely. Huh!?

It strikes me that we are facing the problem of trying to write a "specification" for a "1 size fits 1" problem!

WCAG has already see some of this with ALT attribs. While it is possible to state that ALT tags should be provided the exact requirements of users for ALT text for "eyecandy" images depends on the individual. And the spec doesn't cover what makes appropriate language for differing users and differing contexts etc. Thus we've see a lot of blog post discussing the precise usage of ALT attribs, often from a individual perspective.

That's all part of the fun of a11y standards and Coga hits this problem full on and write large!

I'd like to thank everyone for all their hard work and dedication on this. Lisa gets loads of brownie points from me for doing a great job of herding the requirements cats. Getting SCs into wcag is going to impact a lot of people in a very positive way.

Rock on!





Steve Lee
OpenDirective http://opendirective.com

On 9 February 2017 at 00:47, Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>> wrote:
Many of the formulas for ease of reading in English (e.g. Flesch-Kincaid) require samples of 100-150 words.  That won't work for labels and menus.   The Dale-Chall formula uses a list of 3000 common words which could address the labels and menus. We wouldn't be able to require that specific formula (since it needs to be applicable internationally) although we could reference it in a Technique.

Here is a link to the Dale Chall word list.  While I didn't spend a lot of time looking at terms, I can confirm that it has "home", "about", "shopping", and "cart".  ;)
http://www.readabilityformulas.com/articles/dale-chall-readability-word-list.php

I hope this helps.  If AGWG doesn't accept the Plain Language proposals, then I can work with Jim to either:

* work out some of the flaws in the reading level proposals; or
* figure out what parts of the existing list do match the WCAG SC requirements, and draft an SC with a more limited scope.

Hopefully, AGWG will agree to the existing proposal.  I would love to be wrong.  :)

On 2/8/2017 6:41 PM, Michael Pluke wrote:
We certainly hope that instructions will be short! So I think that you have raised a very important point about whether there can be useful measurement of reading level on such short texts.

Mike

From: Smith, Jim [mailto:smithjs@atos.net]
Sent: 08 February 2017 22:04
To: Michael Pluke <Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com><mailto:Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com>; EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk><mailto:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk>; Milliken, Neil <neil.milliken@atos.net><mailto:neil.milliken@atos.net>; lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>
Cc: Thaddeus . <inclusivethinking@gmail.com><mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com>; public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org><mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com><mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>
Subject: RE: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals for WCAG 2.1

Interesting stuff – given that error messages, control labels and critical instructions will tend to be short collections of words, will this not make any measure of readability statistically unreliable?

From the reference below I couldn’t find any discussion on the minimum length of material required for a reading test, but that may be buried in the references contained or taken as understood by anyone working in the field.

Jim

From: Michael Pluke [mailto:Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2017 2:11 PM
To: EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk<mailto:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk>>; Milliken, Neil <neil.milliken@atos.net<mailto:neil.milliken@atos.net>>; lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>>
Cc: Thaddeus . <inclusivethinking@gmail.com<mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com>>; public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org<mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>>; Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>>
Subject: RE: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals for WCAG 2.1

Useful sources – thanks EA.

From: EA Draffan [mailto:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk]
Sent: 07 February 2017 14:31
To: Milliken, Neil <neil.milliken@atos.net<mailto:neil.milliken@atos.net>>; lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>>
Cc: Thaddeus . <inclusivethinking@gmail.com<mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com>>; public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org<mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>>; Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>>
Subject: RE: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals for WCAG 2.1

I vote 3

Holiday reading or references!

Readability: The limitations of an approach through formulae (this paper has a definition of readability)
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/213296.pdf

Another very readable discussion about readability and the limitations of scales, but also measuring sentence length by number of words etc.
http://www.impact-information.com/impactinfo/Limitations.pdf

old one
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/15490/why-rf-fail.html?sequence=3



Best wishes
E.A.

Mrs E.A. Draffan
WAIS, ECS , University of Southampton
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UK AAATE rep http://www.aaate.net/


________________________________
From: Milliken, Neil [neil.milliken@atos.net<mailto:neil.milliken@atos.net>]
Sent: 06 February 2017 23:13
To: lisa.seeman
Cc: Thaddeus .; public-cognitive-a11y-tf; Jeanne Spellman
Subject: Re: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals for WCAG 2.1

I vote 3


Kind regards,

Neil Milliken
Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion
Atos
M: 07812325386<tel:07812%20325386><tel:07812325386>
E: Neil.Milliken@atos.net<mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net><mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net><mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net%3e>
http://atos.net/iux
http://atos.net/accessibilityservices
@neilmilliken



On 6 Feb 2017, at 22:35, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com%3e%3e> wrote:

I am changing my vote to 3 as well.
The SC as it is incredibly easy to write testing tools for. there are a few open source language processing tools that you can use to count cluses actureltys. Testing against a word list is also something that exists already in restricted language tools and is very easy to program. It cant be that we need to have a worse SC and use archaic reading level tools because WCAG are to set in their ways to accept any new technology.

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn<http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/><http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/%3e>, Twitter<https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa><https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa%3e>




---- On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 21:55:36 +0200 Thaddeus .<inclusivethinking@gmail.com<mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com><mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com>><mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com%3e%3e> wrote ----

I vote 3

On Feb 6, 2017 11:08 AM, "lisa.seeman" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com%3e%3e> wrote:
We had issues with reading level , for example the word "mode" is a lower reading level than "hot or cold" . the lower reading level is much harder to understand.
The reason to go with Jeanne's proposal is because wcag _might_ find it more testable. This would only be, in my opinion, because they have not bothered read the whole proposal and testability section (or they do not want new tools) Also i am not sure it is more testable in different languages and that is essential for WCAG. Wordlists requiremnts however, can work easily in any language and wordlists can be automatically generated by parsing a few sites.

I agree that the "unless..." clause is only human testable but that it very typical for wcag.


I want to suggest three options

1 - we retract our current pull requests and put these in instead

2 - we go with the current pull requests. If they fail and the comments are hard to address then we go with Jeanne's

3 -we go with the current pull requests. we can revisit this if needed

My vote is 3, to go with the current wording and see what happens


All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn<http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/><http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/%3e>, Twitter<https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa><https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa%3e>




---- On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:00:24 +0200 Jeanne Spellman<jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com><mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>><mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com%3e%3e> wrote ----

A group of us at The Paciello Group (TPG) have been meeting every week in January to comment on the WCAG 2.1 proposals. Because we test WCAG 2.0 all day, every (business) day, we have a lot of experience with both the language of WCAG and the testing of WCAG. What we decided this week is that we want to focus our efforts toward helping COGA TF draft success criteria that will get into WCAG 2.1 and will accomplish most of what you want -- even if it is phrased differently.

We started with the proposals that we thought would be the least controversial to the WCAG WG to include. I looked at the Plain Language proposals and did my best to look at the needs identified by COGA TF, and craft language that I thought would be acceptable to the WCAG WG and be included in the first draft version of WCAG 2.1.

The wording is quite different, but in my opinion, addresses the needs identified. I chose reading level, because it is internationally standardized, and there are automated tests already available. When I look at Technique G153: Making the text easier to read https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/G153.html , it covers most of the items that the COGA TF identified.

Issue 30 Proposal:

Understandable Labels: Navigation elements and form labels do not require reading ability greater than primary education level. (A) [link to WCAG’s definition of primary education level from UNESCO standard]


Issue 41:

Understandable Instructions: Headings, error messages and instructions for completing tasks do not require reading ability greater than lower secondary education level. (AA) [link to WCAG’s definition of lower secondary level from UNESCO standard]


Delta 3.1.5 (rewrite of existing WCAG 3.1.5)

Understandable Content: Blocks of text either: (AAA)

· have a reading level no more advanced than lower secondary education, or

· a version is provided that does not require reading ability more advanced than lower secondary education. [links to WCAG’s definitions of lower secondary education and blocks of text]








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