COGA Guidance Subgroup: Action items, summary, and minutes for February 5th

Hi, folks, thanks for good discussion today. Here are the action items,
summary, and minutes for February 5th, thanks.

*Action items*

   - @Julie Rawe <jrawe@understood.org>  to include in the "Status of the
   Document" section a review question asking for feedback on whether the
   automated-testing section is helpful and, if not, how might we make it more
   helpful.
   - Julie to ask @Rain Michaels <rainb@google.com> and @Jennifer Reilly
   <jmreilly@google.com> for an update on the soon-to-be-published paper on
   what size and spacing of controls help people with cognitive disabilities.
   - @Beasley, Len <BeasleyL1@aetna.com> to rework the parts of the "What
   to do" section and "How to test" about making sure non-interactive elements
   don't look like controls.
   - Subgroup to discuss personalization
   - Subgroup to discuss whether to split this pattern into multiple
   patterns. To help us think about this, we should compare the length of this
   pattern to the other two draft patterns. Are they covering roughly similar
   amounts of information? Or is this one much longer than the other two?

*Summary*
*1. "How to test" intro: *Reworded intro to avoid confusion over what is
meant by "one recommended path." Also added future link to a section we're
planning with general info about how to test. This helps us keep the
testing info in each pattern specific to that particular pattern.

*2. **Automated-testing section*

   - We debated whether to remove the this section since it overlaps so
   much with the expert-testing section.
   - We decided to keep it in for now and ask the public for feedback.

*3. Expert-testing section: *We made three changes to the sets of tests:

   - Reordered so they are listed in the same order as the "What to do"
   guidance
   - Added mini-headers with the focus of each set of test
   - Used WCAG 3-style wording so each step in a test starts with a verb
   and the "Expected results" are clearly labeled.
   - Per Lisa request, we added "or" and "and" at the end of each testing
   step, to help prepare users for the expected results.

*4. Size and spacing — "What to do" and tests: *Lisa put in her best
guesses for specific values to include in this section. Julie will ask Rain
and Jen if the soon-to-be-published paper (about which there is an editor's
note in the "What to do" section) so we can use specifics that appear in a
published paper.

*5. Non-interactive vs interactive — "What to do" and tests: *We discussed
problems with the current draft, and Len volunteered to rework it.

*6. Roll-back option — "What to do" and tests: *We discussed the need to
clarify several important things:

   - Defining what kind[s] of changes are big enough to need a roll-back
   option
   - Clarifying hat is meant by providing a roll-back option
   - Ensuring that the guidance we provide is feasible

*7. Personalization — "What to do" and tests": *We started to talk about a
few problems:

   - The tests are currently more specific than the "What to do" info in
   this pattern.
   - We need to figure out how to approach personalization info in
   individual patterns vs in a big section on personalization.

*8. **Big-picture question:* Lisa asked if we should split this pattern
into several patterns. The group needs to discuss.

*Minutes: *

   - https://www.w3.org/2026/02/05-coga-minutes.html


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[image: ThroughMyEyesimage]   *Julie Rawe*
*Director, Content Strategy & Accessibility*
jrawe@understood.org
www.understood.org


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Received on Friday, 6 February 2026 00:09:24 UTC