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

That's all very useful Mike thanks. And no too depressing given the
complexities we are addressing.

I agree it's almost impossible to write such a guide so it was a bit of a
straw man. But a nice dream never-the-less.:)

Personally, anything that helps me focus on what the desired outcome is
helps me write, manage and review SCs

thanks again for your insites


Steve Lee
OpenDirective http://opendirective.com

On 10 February 2017 at 11:01, Michael Pluke <Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com>
wrote:

> Hi Steve
>
>
>
> Whereas there is no such guide, and it would probably be a major challenge
> to write, I think that many of the issues that we are meeting can be
> predicted when we compare what we have with the following extract from the
> “Success Criteria” section of “Understanding WCAG”:
>
>
>
> “ Each Success Criterion is written as a statement that will be either
> true or false when specific Web content is tested against it. The Success
> Criteria are written to be technology neutral.
>
>
>
> All WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria are written as testable criteria for
> objectively determining if content satisfies the Success Criteria. While
> some of the testing can be automated using software evaluation programs,
> others require human testers for part or all of the test.”
>
>
>
> I think that there are a few of our SCs where, because of the many
> elements in them and because of some of the concepts in the wording, it is
> difficult for someone to be really certain whether the result is true or
> false when testing. The majority of WCAG 2.0 SCs are quite short and often
> contain only one clear concept. Those that are longer and have multiple
> bullets are, according to what I’ve heard, those that took an enormous
> amount of debate and re-writing before they were agreed.
>
>
>
> I think we may have a few instances where the technology neutrality is
> being questioned. It is also seen as a problem when we hypothesise
> techniques that rely on new untried or predicted technologies as our
> primary way to assure sceptical people that the SC can be met.
>
>
>
> Probably the majority of our problems revolve around testability. Although
> Understanding WCAG talks of using accessibility experts and involving users
> with disabilities in the testing, these are not required. I believe that
> all of those objecting to many of our SCs are very involved in and aware of *the
> current reality* where it is assumed that conformance to WCAG will be
> done by non-experts using either automated test tools or by making
> judgements that require no expert knowledge and no heavyweight processes
> like user testing.
>
>
>
> I think that this last issue is the one the really makes things extremely
> hard in relation to most COGA proposals. When we talk about cognitive
> issues it is all about what people may understand (clearly or at all) and
> whether tasks are too complex for them to perform, etc. None of these
> things currently lend themselves to generally available automated testing
> (and even the clever language understanding/summarising tools are probably
> not really up to providing definitive assurances that people will or will
> not be able to understand something). It is also clear that one or a few
> non-expert testers are not really going to be able to judge what is
> understandable to people with a wide range of cognitive and learning
> disabilities.
>
>
>
> All of the above is horribly depressing, but I still think that we have
> the prospect of getting a few SCs through. That will be a start in what I
> think is going to be a very long journey to really ensure that people with
> cognitive and learning disabilities are much more comfortable and effective
> when using the Web.
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
>
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> *From:* Steve Lee [mailto:steve@opendirective.com]
> *Sent:* 10 February 2017 10:22
> *To:* John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
> *Cc:* lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>; EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk>;
> Milliken, Neil <neil.milliken@atos.net>; Thaddeus . <
> inclusivethinking@gmail.com>; public-cognitive-a11y-tf <
> public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; Jeanne Spellman <
> jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>
>
> *Subject:* Re: Proposals for revision of the Plain Language SC proposals
> for WCAG 2.1
>
>
>
> > only that the proposal as writ right now will have a hard time passing
> the wide review that FPWD brings, and if we cannot answer the types of
> questions I am asking now, in our more closed environment, then this SC
> will likely not make the final cut, sad as that is
>
> That makes me think what we are missing is a "guide to how to write SCs
> that are accepted".
>
> The regulars on the WCAG list have a lot of implicit knowledge and
> experience of the politics and practicabilities of the process that we
> don't all share. It seems like it could be a steep learning curve and
> combine with the current process is slowing us down from getting effective
> SCs out.
>
> Could a workshop or guide of some sort be arranged to help get us up to
> speed on these sort of issues?
>
> How about something at CSUN with remote access?
>
>
> Steve Lee
> OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
>
>
>
> On 9 February 2017 at 23:14, John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Steve,
>
>
>
> From my perspective, do not be confused by low levels of discussion on any
> single new SC - we are all struggling to keep up with the flurry of
> correspondence at this time.
>
>
>
> The latest PR for this new SC is simply the latest PR - it in no way means
> that the SC is "finalized" - only that it is now going to the larger WCAG
> WG for more review before it is "baked" into the 2.1 FPWD. (Note that the
> full Working Group is not copied on this email, only the COGA TF)
>
>
>
> I have a number of concerns with how this is emerging right now, including
> some centered around internationalization (for example, my early research
> shows that the use of the Passive Voice is not only common, but often
> "required" in the Japanese language, and insisting on a non-passive voice
> in that language may actually introduce *MORE* confusion for Japanese with
> learning disabilities. Surely we don't want that!)
>
>
>
> Additionally, I personally believe that statements such as "*It is
> expected that natural language processing algorithms will be able to
> conform to this automatically with reasonable accuracy.*" (Future tense)
> means that we do not have this ability today - but I am not sure, do such
> tools exist today? (Later, the draft suggests that IBM has "a tool" that
> can perform this today, but dependency on a single tool for testing is
> problematic, especially if it is a "for-profit" tool. Additionally, does
> that tool also support multiple languages? My colleague Birkir
> Gunnarsson is Icelandic - does the tool support his mother tongue as well?)
>
>
>
> NOTE - I am not for an instant suggesting that the spirit of this SC, or
> the Needs Statement that is driving it, are not valid, only that the
> proposal as writ right now will have a hard time passing the wide review
> that FPWD brings, and if we cannot answer the types of questions I am
> asking now, in our more closed environment, then this SC will likely not
> make the final cut, sad as that is.
>
>
>
> So let's get it rock-solid now, ya?
>
>
>
> JF
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 3:14 PM, Steve Lee <steve@opendirective.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, my bad. I forgot where I was in the process of managing these 2.
>
> The reason for my reticence was the very low level of discussion. These
> were my 1st as a SC manager and I really expect more push and shove. I
> guess that means they are good.
>
>
>
> Sorry again for the confusion due to being new to the process.
>
>
> Steve Lee
> OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
>
>
>
> On 9 February 2017 at 21:01, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:
>
> The pull request was done before Jeene made her suggestions so it is
> really too late. The issue is closed.
>
> My 2 cents - The Success criteria was pretty clear, measurable and
> testable  - more then a lot of what is in WCAG 2.0
>
>
>
> All the best
>
> Lisa Seeman
>
> LinkedIn <http://il.linkedin.com/in/lisaseeman/>, Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/SeemanLisa>
>
>
>
>
> ---- On Thu, 09 Feb 2017 20:46:03 +0200 *John
> Foliot<john.foliot@deque.com <john.foliot@deque.com>>* wrote ----
>
> Hi EA,
>
>
>
> Thanks. I don't see this as "causing trouble" - I see this as having an
> open, honest and candid discussion. We need to balance the needs of many
> disparate groups, including content authors who are not experts (and never
> will be). I've tried very hard to stay on top of the COGA requirements, and
> one of the larger take-away's I've learned is that individual
> personalization is and will be the Holy Grail for COGA issues.
>
>
>
> But we simply aren't there yet, not at anything that would scale, and I
> think we do ourselves a dis-service if we don't accept that truism today.
>
>
>
> Re: Innovation - I fully support that 100% - YES. We have a number of
> user-needs today, however the technology still isn't mature enough to start
> mandating that site-owners do "X, Y, Z", and frankly I think that if we
> ever got to the point where WCAG became that prescriptive we'd loose more
> ground then we've gained.
>
>
>
> This is one of the reasons why I suggested that for the release of 2.1,
> any User Requirement that was still unattainable at scale be none-the-less
> published as an official W3C Note, as we did with the MAUR (
> https://www.w3.org/TR/media-accessibility-reqs/) - not everything in that
> list is achievable today, but the needs still exist, and what the
> 'expectations' are have been collected and published. To my happy
> discovery, there are now technologists out there taking these Requirements
> and then working on Proof Of Concept solutions. This has to be a positive
> thing!
>
>
>
> I sort of think of it like American Football - not every play is going to
> score a touch-down, but if we are successful in moving the ball closer to
> the goal line, we're still "winning". WCAG 2.0 had little-to-nothing to
> address the needs of the core constituency of the COGA and LV Task Forces
> when it was published in 2008, and we've done a good job collecting the
> User Requirements (Gap Analysis), but I also think we've got plenty more
> plays ahead of us before we score touch-downs there. But if, with 2.1, we
> move the ball forward closer towards the goal-posts, I think we're doing
> well - the goal now isn't "the touch-down" but rather "How many yards can
> we advance forward with this play?"
>
>
>
> For me, it keeps on coming down to "Don't let Perfect be the enemy of
> Good".
>
>
>
> Cheers!
>
>
>
> JF
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 10:47 AM, EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Thank you for all the trouble you have taken John,  and I certainly did
> not expect such an amazing reply this was just me researching it all a bit
> more.
>
> Apologies for causing trouble.  Lets just see if we can find a better way
> to test readability to suit all users.  Perhaps we can be a bit more
> innovative as Lisa suggested, but I appreciate we will have to make it
> robust and go through validation tests - thoughts of crowdsourcing help
> across different languages etc.
>
> Best wishes
> E.A.
>
> Mrs E.A. Draffan
> WAIS, ECS , University of Southampton
> Mobile +44 (0)7976 289103 <07976%20289103>
> http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk<http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>
> UK AAATE rep http://www.aaate.net/
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: John Foliot [john.foliot@deque.com]
> Sent: 09 February 2017 16:18
> To: EA Draffan
> Cc: Milliken, Neil; lisa.seeman; Thaddeus .; public-cognitive-a11y-tf;
> Jeanne Spellman
> Subject: 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<mailto:ea
> d@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 <07976%20289103><tel:%2B44%20%280%
> 297976%20289103 <%2B44%20%280%297976%20289103>>
> 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<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 <07812%20325386><tel:07812325386 <07812%20325386>>
> E: Neil.Milliken@atos.net<mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net><mailto:
> 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><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa
> .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><mailto:
> 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><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com<mailto:lisa
> .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><mailto:
> 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<mailto:john.foliot@deque.com>
>
>
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> John Foliot
>
> Principal Accessibility Strategist
>
> Deque Systems Inc.
>
> john.foliot@deque.com
>
>
>
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> John Foliot
>
> Principal Accessibility Strategist
>
> Deque Systems Inc.
>
> john.foliot@deque.com
>
>
>
> Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>
>
>