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

Jeanne thank you also ad its helpful to get a clearer idea of the big
picture.

While that might be seen to someehat relieve the pressure of the 2.1
deadline I feel we should still work to get as many coga SCs in as
possible.

It seems that for some there will be a need to position them on scale
between narrowing the scope to make them easily testable and flexible to
leave some interpretation in application.

Are we really in the situation that only SCs at the narrow scope but
testable end of the spectrum can be accepted in 2.1?

If so we are going to have a hard job of compromising the cogs goals to get
something in.

If again like to mention alt text. While the spec is narrow enough to make
it testable, the reality of what makes good alt text is much more nuanced.
The spec offers no comment on the subtleties as far as I know. And as Mike
mentioned I bet caused some of the longest discussion.

My point is not everything is included in ful explicit detail in wcag, but
the principle is clearly signposted, in this case that screen reader users
should be able to understand images! The nuance is in some cases an
individual may not want to be bothered with the extra noise but others find
it important.

WAI aria polite / rude at  is similarly a personal thing so hard to provide
a simple yes no test for.

So can the more controversial coga SCs be handled in a similar way? Or the
more flexible language accapted. It then raises the issue oven if not
precisely testable.





Steve Lee
Sent from my mobile device Please excuse typing errors

On 10 Feb 2017 17:19, "Jeanne Spellman" <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>
wrote:

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/1FAIpQLSd7jxkMzK4HbzK0cyyBnkv3
cKFJL_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 <steve@opendirective.com>]

*Sent:* 10 February 2017 10:22
*To:* John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> <john.foliot@deque.com>
*Cc:* lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>; EA Draffan
<ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk> <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk>; Milliken, Neil
<neil.milliken@atos.net> <neil.milliken@atos.net>; Thaddeus .
<inclusivethinking@gmail.com> <inclusivethinking@gmail.com>;
public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>
<public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; Jeanne Spellman
<jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com> <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<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,

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