RE: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

Hi Lisa

Although I think that this change does remove some difficult to test elements, I fear that the following words are still very problematic:


  *   provide words, phrases or abbreviations that are the are most-common form to refer to the concept in the current context

Firstly every person evaluating a site may have a very different view of what "the current context" actually is. It presumably might be the general subject area that the web page addresses, which could be any obscure subject like "Mastering Tibetan meditation techniques" (an instructional topic). It would be hard to find a single authoritative source that lists all the appropriate terms for such a subject, and it would be much more likely that several contradictory sources might exist. It is also not realistic to expect someone evaluating the website to know about and have access to such a source, even if it did exist. So how could they evaluate if the site met this SC?

In ETSI we currently have a proposal under consideration to develop a terminology document that gives preferred names for "features/services including mobile and web-based applications, as well the setting-up of and access to the Internet" in the five most common (native) European languages  (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish). If and when such a document is completed, this would be exactly what would be needed as a source of "abbreviations, words, or phrases" for a wide range of ICT technical terms in a small set of languages. This would be a good source to use when the current context was something like "helping and instructing a user on the use of ICT". But this is likely to be a very rare example of a really usable source that could be used if the website was written in one of these five languages. In most other contexts, nothing even remotely similar would exist.

Best regards

Mike


From: lisa.seeman [mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com]
Sent: 19 February 2017 08:33
To: public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; W3c-Wai-Gl-Request@W3. Org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

Hi Folks

Continuing the conversation on simple language, to address concern with testability (as user testing is not acceptable)  I want to suggest the following change to the clause on common words:

Change:
*  Simple, clear, and common words: Use words or phrases that are most-frequently used for the current context, unless it will result in a loss of meaning or clarity. This includes not using abbreviations, words, or phrases, unless they are the common form to refer to concepts for beginners. Where word frequencies are known for the context, they can be used.

to:

*  Simple, clear, and common words: Use the the most common 1500 words or phrases or, provide words, phrases or abbreviations that are the are most-common form to refer to the concept in the current context.


The scope is instructions, labels, navigational elements, and error messages which require a response to continue.

 Technique would include:

  *   Using a title tag to provide a simple language equivalent
  *   Using the coga-easylang attribute (prefered)
  *   Providing extra text via personalization semantics.
  *   Using simple words
Technology support includes: word frequency generator for a given context, (reads the URI's list and generates a word frequency list), existing word frequency lists, checker to test that words are in the most

There are also a list of exceptions that is quite long - issues 30 - and we are proposing to add a exception for long instructions (as per previous email) We could add an exception for user testing, but amazingly that is controversial.

The thinking is: the most common 1500 words is really trivial for testing tools to find and generate a warning. However using the most comment form to refer to something in the current context will, in this scope , take care of  the clarity issue and is also  testable with the tools above.

please do not bring up issues that are addressed in the exceptions or are out of the scope.


All the best

Lisa Seeman

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

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