Call for Review: Working Draft of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0

>>
>>Draft Documents." The Introduction explains the relationships  between
>>WCAG 2.0 and the supporting documents, and links to the  current version
>>of  each document. The Introduction is available at:
>>      <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20>

There is no clear reference on the primary document or the navigation to 
some of the supporting documents, such as the Questions and Answers about 
Baseline http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20-baseline.php which is only 
found as a link on one of the subsequent documents.

>>The Working Group is interested in discussion of the following questions.
>>
>>1. This draft represents a significant reorganization of the WCAG
>>    document set of guidelines and support documents.  It includes
>>    changes to the wording of individual  success criteria.  It also
>>    provides a rationale and a listing of techniques deemed sufficient
>>    for each success criterion.
>>    - In general, is the new organization easier to understand?

The four guiding principles with associated guidelines are better.  However 
the documentation as it stands would scare most content authors in my place 
of work because they are rather long with much detail.

>>    - Are success criteria at the right conformance level?

I feel that the answer here is no.  Far too many of the criteria seem to 
based on machine testability and not on how much the general accessibility 
of the document would be improved.  WCAG 1 with the priorities being 
related to improved accessibility was far better.

>>    - Are success criteria accurately worded?  Are they understandable?

The need for defining Key Terms in 
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20-20051123 suggests that 
they are not easily understandable.

I also feel that phrases such as "programmatically determined" are going to 
lead to inaccessible content because content authors can still create tag 
soup which should still "programmatically determined" as something 
meaningful.  <h1> and <font size="24pt"> looks almost the same, doesn't 
it?  Surely it can be "programmatically determined" to be heading text.

Lynn Alford

Received on Wednesday, 21 December 2005 23:33:39 UTC