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

Mike,

That is an excellent explanation of some of the realities we are dealing 
with.  I don't think it is depressing, however.

I have great hope for getting a lot of the COGA user needs addressed in 
WCAG 2.1.  But I think what is most hopeful, is that if we don't get 
everything into WCAG 2.1, the new charter for the AGWG commits them to a 
process of continually updating the guidelines -- how often, is still in 
hot debate, but it will NOT be a 10 year wait for the next version.

I am co-leading a task force that is already looking at what will be the 
"WCAG 3.0" -- that won't be the name, it doesn't have a name yet.  We 
are calling it Silver (for the chemical symbol for Silver, Ag, for 
Accessibility Guidelines).  We are starting with a year of user research 
to determine a new structure that will better serve people with 
disabilities.  We have a lot of goals, but the key ones are:

* address more types of disabilities
* be more flexible to update
* be easier to use

What is relevant to this discussion is that Silver doesn't HAVE to use 
the design of WCAG 2.0.  It will need to have some core of testable 
requirements that the policy makers and lawyers like, but I suspect (and 
we are waiting on the user research and prototyping) that the value of 
Silver will be a more flexible structure that will encourage designers, 
editors, and developers to integrate more of the COGA user needs in a 
way that doesn't HAVE to be testable.

WCAG 2.1 will be finished in 2018.  Silver is scheduled for a First 
Public Working Draft in 2018 and probably will be finished in 
2020-2021.  The chairs of AGWG (the group formerly known as WCAG WG) 
want to publish a WCAG 2.2 if there are delays in Silver, or if there is 
a need for another update of WCAG.

What I am trying to say, is that as the new tools and assistive 
technology for COGA continue to be developed, there will be W3C 
accessibility standards coming along that can incorporate them.

This isn't 2008.  If you miss the WCAG 2.1 train, you don't have to wait 
10 years.

I know that there is a chicken-and-egg issue.  You need the standards to 
encourage developers to build the tools.  You need the tools to justify 
including them in the standards.  I continue to hope that starting to 
get the COGA SC into WCAG 2.1 will encourage the developers to develop 
more tools, which will make it easier to get more COGA standards into 
the next version, whether that is WCAG 2.2 or Silver.

If anyone on the COGA taskforce is interesting in contributing to the 
Silver research (answering surveys, being interviewed -- not too much 
work), please sign up to be a Silver stakeholder. We have over 300 
people who have signed up to give input into the Silver design so far.  
You can sign up at 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd7jxkMzK4HbzK0cyyBnkv3cKFJL_ahIwIcbHao7qOZLyDy-w/viewform 
.

I personally am very committed to continuing to address the complex user 
needs identified by the COGA Task Force with WCAG 2.1 and with Silver.

Jeanne


On 2/10/2017 6:01 AM, Michael Pluke 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 
> <mailto: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
>     <mailto: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
>         <mailto: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
>             <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>                     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
>                     <mailto: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:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk><mailto:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk
>                     <mailto: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<tel:%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><mailto: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
>                     <tel:07812%20325386>>
>                     E: Neil.Milliken@atos.net
>                     <mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net><mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net
>                     <mailto:Neil.Milliken@atos.net>><mailto: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:lisa.seeman@zoho.com><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com
>                     <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com
>                     <mailto:lisa.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>><mailto: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:lisa.seeman@zoho.com><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com
>                     <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com>><mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com
>                     <mailto:lisa.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>><mailto: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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>
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>
>
>
>                     --
>                     John Foliot
>                     Principal Accessibility Strategist
>                     Deque Systems Inc.
>                     john.foliot@deque.com
>                     <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com><mailto: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 <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 <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com>
>
>     Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion
>

Received on Friday, 10 February 2017 17:19:33 UTC