RE: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

JF: “I know I ask hard questions, and it may seem I am resisting this SC, but that is far from the case. If we collectively cannot answer the questions I am raising now, internally among our peers, then what will happen when we go out for wider review to non-experts?”

 

FYI…..”wider review” may indeed include “non-experts”, but it actually includes many more who are “experts” in our field, and many who are more experienced than those who happen to be in the WG, including those doing scholastic research and development. This is one of the reasons for the public review – gaining feedback from those who are busy building an accessible web, and have valuable feedback to help us improve our content – based on their specific areas of expertise……there are many more of our peers out ‘there’ than there are in the WG.

 

​​​​​* katie *

 

Katie Haritos-Shea 
Principal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)

 

Cell: 703-371-5545 |  <mailto:ryladog@gmail.com> ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton, VA |  <http://www.linkedin.com/in/katieharitosshea/> LinkedIn Profile | Office: 703-371-5545 |  <https://twitter.com/Ryladog> @ryladog

NOTE: The content of this email should be construed to always be an expression of my own personal independent opinion, unless I identify that I am speaking on behalf of Knowbility, as their AC Rep at the W3C - and - that my personal email never expresses the opinion of my employer, Deque Systems.

 

From: John Foliot [mailto:john.foliot@deque.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2017 11:36 AM
To: EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Cc: Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>; lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>; Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu>; public-cognitive-a11y-tf <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>; GLWAI Guidelines WG org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

 

> But simple words in "instructions, labels, navigational elements, and error messages which require a response to continue", would help us all!

Hi EA,

 

I couldn't agree more, which is why I am 'active' in this discussion. Yes, I am pushing hard for a real, measurable SC that we can advance that supports this need, which means I am also pushing back hard on vagaries and 'holes' that I am seeing now. 

 

I know I ask hard questions, and it may seem I am resisting this SC, but that is far from the case. If we collectively cannot answer the questions I am raising now, internally among our peers, then what will happen when we go out for wider review to non-experts?

 

JF

 

On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 10:24 AM, EA Draffan <ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk <mailto:ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk> > wrote:

I think the idea of an easy-to-read or coga-easylang tag is the best option as there are many languages that do not have large word frequency lists and they are all very dependent on the era in which they were collected and the setting as Gregg suggested.  But simple words in "instructions, labels, navigational elements, and error messages which require a response to continue", would help us all!

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: John Foliot [john.foliot@deque.com <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com> ]
Sent: 20 February 2017 16:06
To: Michael Gower
Cc: lisa.seeman; Gregg C Vanderheiden; public-cognitive-a11y-tf; GLWAI Guidelines WG org
Subject: Re: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

> What happens with multi-language pages - is it 1500 words per language present?

I continue to have serious reservations here around internationalization: this proposed SC currently feels very "western-centric" in its approach.

Mike Pluke previously noted 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish), but what of other languages? (and which "Spanish"?) What of Asian-based languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc.) or Russian, Arabic or Hebrew languages (to name a few others)? How does this proposed SC scale there?

As others have noted as well, which 1500 words (or phrases) are we using as *The Standard*? Is the intent to leave that list undefined at this time? Why?

What happens when variants of a language 'conflict'? (For example, in North America a car has a "trunk" and runs on "gas", while in the UK an automobile has a "boot" and runs on "petrol".. which of those words makes the 1500-word list? The US version, the UK version, both, or neither?)

My fear is that in an effort to be effective here, we are also being overly prescriptive. Additionally, while I look forward to future technologies assisting us with this need, reliance on them for the proposed SC is counter to how we should be writing SC - as Gregg notes both members of this WG as well as non-experts need to be able to use our emergent WCAG 2.1 to actually test WCAG 2.1 in a measurable and repeatable fashion today.

We need to be standardizing Requirements and Success Criteria, not specific solutions attached to hard-to-define variables.

JF

On Mon, Feb 20, 2017 at 8:32 AM, Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com <mailto:michael.gower@ca.ibm.com> <mailto:michael.gower@ca.ibm.com <mailto:michael.gower@ca.ibm.com> >> wrote:
Although the issue was closed in github, I've put more comments on this topic there since the context is clearer and discussion has been ongoing
https://github.com/w3c/wcag21/issues/30
Michael Gower
IBM Accessibility
Research

1803 Douglas Street, Victoria, BC  V8T 5C3
gowerm@ca.ibm.com <mailto:gowerm@ca.ibm.com> <mailto:gowerm@ca.ibm.com <mailto:gowerm@ca.ibm.com> >
voice: (250) 220-1146 <tel:%28250%29%20220-1146> <tel:(250)%20220-1146> * cel: (250) 661-0098 <tel:%28250%29%20661-0098> <tel:(250)%20661-0098> *  fax: (250) 220-8034 <tel:%28250%29%20220-8034> <tel:(250)%20220-8034>



From:        "lisa.seeman" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com> <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com> >>
To:        Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> >>
Cc:        "public-cognitive-a11y-tf" <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org <mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org> <mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org <mailto:public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org> >>, "GLWAI Guidelines WG org" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> <mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org> >>
Date:        2017-02-20 05:48 AM
Subject:        Re: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.
________________________________



Thank you Gregg. I think we are getting closer

Note that the Sc is only for instructions, labels, navigational elements, and error messages which require a response to continue.

SO there is no need to build a whole website along these lines. (That would only be a AAA conformance level)

 Also if  you can comply by using a title tag or coga-easylang, will make it much easier and less restrictive

I agree we will need a better term or clear definition of current context. hopefully then we will get there.

Any suggestions for reworking the current context part?

All the best

Lisa Seeman

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




---- On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 19:40:13 +0200 Gregg C Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> >>wrote ----

  *   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.


This is a very interesting definition.  By adding context — it makes content self adjust.   For example — a physics site could have physics terms on it - which would clearly not be plain language.

My only concern as an author would be that several key things are not defined.

1)  what does “current context” mean.      If my website is the current context — it means everything passes because those are the terms in my context.    If the context is ‘science websites’  then I do not know what the most common terms are for them — nor do I know what the definition of ‘science website’ is.   (That is — if you define current context as being X context  then  X needs to be defined — and I need to know what the common words are for that context.

2) the most common 1500 words includes lots of prepositions, and articles  (Most or all of them)  but only a small percentage of nouns.    Very hard to write a website with only the most common 1500 words.    (I did word frequency studies in my earlier years)


I think the approach is clever — but still leads to an untestable SC since there is no way for the author  (or for testers) to know what “current context” means.         (and you can’t write WCAG with the most common 1500 words)


Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu <mailto:greggvan@umd.edu> >



On Feb 19, 2017, at 3:33 AM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com> <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com <mailto:lisa.seeman@zoho.com> >> wrote:

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>









--
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.

 <mailto:john.foliot@deque.com> john.foliot@deque.com

 

Advancing the mission of digital accessibility and inclusion