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

TL;DR:
   WCAG Success Criteria need to be *measurable*, and while Reading Scores
have their issues, they are at least *measurable and repeatable*, and will
be significantly more palpable to the millions of content authors we will
be asking to meet this Need.

***

Hi EA,

Thanks for those links. After reading through them (and yes, I read all 3),
I am struck by one of the conclusion statements of the third reference (
https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/15490
/why-rf-fail.html?sequence=3)

"The real factors that affect readability are elements such as the
background knowledge of the reader relative to the knowledge presumed by
the writer, the purpose of the reader relative to the purpose of the
writer, and the purpose of the person who is presenting the text to the
reader. These factors cannot be captured in a simple formula and ignoring
them may do more harm than good."

While we cannot discount this expert opinion
​, it also leaves me wondering how we can ever hope to "standardize" and
quantify/measure something that is clearly not scientific​? Dissecting the
statement above:

   1. *background knowledge of the reader relative to the knowledge
   presumed by the writer* - unknown and unknowable at scale (i.e. sites
   that get hundreds of thousands of unique visits a day)

   2. *the purpose of the reader relative to the purpose of the writer* -
   again, unknown and unknowable at scale

   3. *the purpose of the person who is presenting the text to the reader *-
   this is the only factor apparently under the control of the content author,
   and in scope for the Web *Content* Accessibility Guidelines, and thus
   the only thing a WCAG SC can address.

​
My fear here is that there seems to be 2 opposing goals that we are trying
to meet: one is a "testable" and measurable *standard* that can be taught
and applied​ to millions of websites (the science piece), and yet "writing"
and writing for specific audiences is an "art" (my distillation and
take-away of those three articles).

I get "art", and art is important, but art cannot be quantifiably measured,
it cannot be "taught" (outside of principles - the science of painting with
oils versus drawing with charcoals), but actual "art" certainly cannot be
standardized or measured (unless you are shopping at Walmart, and purchase
"Pastoral Scene #3 - 40" X 60"")

What do I tell a Fortune 500 company they should do, if not try and meet
some kind of standardized reading level? When you are authoring content for
a million people, you cannot know all of your readers. I was more
encouraged by one of the conclusions of the Leeds paper (
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/213296.pdf
​)​


"In conclusion, we want to emphasize that *formulas are not invalidated for
the great majority of writing*. On the other hand, what they cannot measure
should make clear that they cannot make writing a science."



So... what can we do?

In controlled environments, you may be able to ensure more attention is
applied to the "art" side of the problem statement, but for a company like
Tesco, what would you tell Tesco's editorial staff (where there is more
than one editorial person) to do? Tesco proudly claim to serve "...millions
of customers a week in our stores and online." (
https://www.tescoplc.com/about-us/our-businesses/), and so all they can
"know" about their audience is generalized data (likely determined by
user-logs on their website, coupled with possible surveys and focus-group
testing).

Large organizations like this also generally use Style Guides (AP, The
Oxford Style Manual, The Chicago Manual of Style, etc. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_style_guides) as well as often they
will have internal "Voice of the company/Voice of the client" guides as
well (when I worked at JPMC they had such an internal document).

However, outside of specialized environments, getting any kind of buy-in
from the millions of content creators out there will necessitate some form
of measuring methodology, and while reading scores have their issues, *they
seem to be better than nothing at all*, and so I am concerned that COGA
experts are pushing back on this. I will posit that Jeanne's re-writes,
while not 100% "perfect", brings the authoring solution a lot closer to
what is required based upon the research provided.

Add to that the increasingly litigious environment around web
accessibility, and ask yourself how will a judge (who is neither an
accessibility expert nor a language expert) going to judge whether a site
"fails" or not? (For this reason alone we need standardized testing of some
fashion or other, and if not readability scores, then what?)

JF

On Tue, Feb 7, 2017 at 8:31 AM, EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> 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
> Mobile +44 (0)7976 289103
> http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk<http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>
> UK AAATE rep http://www.aaate.net/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Milliken, Neil [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:07812325386>
> E: Neil.Milliken@atos.net<mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net>
> http://atos.net/iux
> http://atos.net/accessibilityservices
> @neilmilliken
>
>
>
> On 6 Feb 2017, at 22:35, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:l
> isa.seeman@zoho.com>> 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/>, Twitter<
> https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 21:55:36 +0200 Thaddeus .<
> inclusivethinking@gmail.com<mailto:inclusivethinking@gmail.com>> wrote
> ----
>
> I vote 3
>
> On Feb 6, 2017 11:08 AM, "lisa.seeman" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:l
> isa.seeman@zoho.com>> 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/>, Twitter<
> https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 20:00:24 +0200 Jeanne Spellman<jspellman@
> spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>> 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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-- 
John Foliot
Principal Accessibility Strategist
Deque Systems Inc.
john.foliot@deque.com

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion