Re: Do we like this better? - was way to move forward with plain language

Gregg we need solutions on how to move forward. We have in are charter that wcag 2.1 need to have accommodation for coga, and we have a wealth of understanding by speech pathologists etc on that this is useful


We also have free tools for word frequency lists, unfortunately that was not enough. 




All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Mon, 22 May 2017 17:56:11 +0300 Gregg C Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu> wrote ---- 

I don’t think we can put this into 2.1 UNTIL

we answer the other questions 
we determine that this will really help people 
we have a tool that everyone can use - free.  (otherwise it fails the feasibility test and can’t go in)
reaching out later is not an option.  it needs to be feasible when we propose it.   and no guarantee it will be if we address this later
ciao 




 g 


Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu





 
 
On May 22, 2017, at 9:55 AM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:

It looks like we are more comfortable with this direction - but we would need some testing tools before CR

SO far as I know the IBM tool is not free, and the Microsoft tool requires a subscription. 


A way to move forward is put it in the next version of wcag 2.1 and reach out to the companies for a free version of the tool.




I also think we may need a exception of languages were a free tool is not available and menus of more then 10 terms (or something like that).

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Mon, 22 May 2017 16:30:53 +0300 Gregg C Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu> wrote ---- 


On May 22, 2017, at 9:06 AM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:

Would we all be more comfortable if we just had 

"Provide words or phrases  or abbreviations that are the most-common form to refer to the concept “







That would be much better.      And at least possible


it also auto-adjusts for words for which there is no simpler word. (What is the simpler word for “transistor”)









Use of word frequency lists and core vocabularies could then be techniques.





 we would have to have other techniques besides just these. These will work in some places so they are sufficient techniques, but they will not work in other places.   We will need to have sufficient techniques that can work on all sites (cumulatively) before we could release this as an SC



This is harder to test.  The manual way to test it might be to look at a thesaurus and see if any of the words that mean the same thing and  are more common.





 if we can describe a tool that could do this, I’m sure that somebody could create a free version of the tool. Trace did this for epilepsy and for contrast  for WCAG 2.0.  



MS and IBM have tools that can test for the most common word. MS review tools are available with a subscription to their cloud. (i am not sure if this is true in all languages) but I can reach out to them and ask if we like this direct.






 the IBM tool available for free use? How does it work?




All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Wed, 17 May 2017 11:31:08 +0300 Alastair Campbell<acampbell@nomensa.com> wrote ---- 

     Jason wrote:
> As mentioned, I’m still thinking through the implications and the feasibility here, but we do need to look beyond conventional approaches to defining and evaluating content requirements if we are to take some issues (especially but not only cognitive ones) into account in an authentic and effective way.
 

Indeed, I have long maintained [1] that where improving accessibility crosses over into usability, you need to apply a certain process rather than guidelines. Most of the work my company does is apply user-centred-design, i.e. UX services for clients.
 

Taking an example relevant to plain language (i.e. using 1500 common words), if you want to ensure a usable navigation menu for a content-oriented website then I would want to follow a particular process such as:
-          Open card sorting to establish how your audience think about the groupings of content and what grouping terms they associate with the content [2].
-          Create a navigation that seems to work for that content & mental model based on the results.
-          Closed card sorting (often with larger numbers) to refine and prove it works [3]. You can put then percentages on how well each term & content grouping works, and refine until it is optimised enough.
 

The two points I’d make are:
1.       There is no guideline that can help you predict the outcome of what a ‘usable’ navigation will be, it is based on content, context and audience. Every time in the last 16 years we have run the above process we massively improve a navigation that was created without it. Provably.
 
 
2.       Arbitrarily using words from a common list it likely to make it less usable for the majority of the audience and cost organisations money.
 

Take the navigation of an ecommerce store for example:  https://www.johnlewis.com/  I think there are more than 1500 words in the navigation! Also, it has (I assume) been finely honed over the years to maximise the usability for their customers.
 

There is no reasonable argument to say that restricting their navigation to an arbitrary 1500 words is going to improve the experience for anyone. You could argue the interface should be simplified (e.g. like the small screen version) so less is presented at once, but many of the terms are objects or categories of things you can buy with specific names you can’t change.
 

If they were asking my advice, I could not in good conscience tell them to restrict their navigation terms to the top 1500 words, it would cost them a lot of money for zero improvement for anyone.
 

On the other hand, usability testing (with anyone but especially people with cognitive issues) or using the card-sorting process above would hugely improve most navigations for everyone, and with less political resistance (in an organisation) because they see the improvements first hand.
 

For me this is something that needs to be dealt with in Silver, and a key part of Silver needs to be dealing with the *process* of making sites usable, as well as accessible. Ideally drawing on (or referring to) the ISO standards for user-centred-design and highlighting aspect particularly relevant for cognitive (and other) disabilities.
 

In the meantime, can we move this one to the Cognitive TF note going out next to 2.1?
 

Kind regards,
 

-Alastair
 

1]  https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2015JulSep/0037.html 
2]  https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/card-sorting.html 
3] https://www.optimalworkshop.com/treejack