Re: Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Public Working Draft of May, 2007

The group does not believe that it is practical to require authors to
write to a primary education level because our research showed that"
even web sites that were targeting children in the early primary
grades did not succeed at writing at the primary education reading
level.

Whatever reading level SC 3.1.5 sets will exclude some people. We
believe that the most effective target for WCAG 2 is the secondary
education level.

Regards,

Loretta Guarino Reid, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Gregg Vanderheiden, WCAG WG Co-Chair
Michael Cooper, WCAG WG Staff Contact

On behalf of the WCAG Working Group

On Nov 19, 2007 12:51 AM, Geert Freyhoff
<G.Freyhoff@inclusion-europe.org> wrote:
> Dear Ms Guarino Reid, Mr Vanderheiden, and Mr Cooper,
>
> Thank you very much for taking our comments into account. Please find
> below the comments of Inclusion Europe on your proposals.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Geert Freyhoff
> Director
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Comment 1: Reading level changed to primary education level
> Source:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0260.
> html
> (Issue ID: 2156)
> ----------------------------
> Original Comment:
> ----------------------------
>
> Most people with cognitive disabilities do not complete lower secondary
> education. In order to provide accessibility for the large majority of
> this group, texts must be as easy to read as possible.
> Since this success criterion is of paramount importance for people with
> cognitive disabilities, the reading level must be changed to be
> equivalent to primary education.
>
> Proposed Change:
> New wording for success criterion 3.1.5:
>
> When text requires reading ability more advanced than the PRIMARY
> education level, supplemental content or an alternate version is
> available that does not require reading ability more advanced than the
> PRIMARY education level.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Response from Working Group:
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> The working group explored the impact of changing SC 3.1.5 to using a
> primary education reading level.  We were able to find very few examples
> of text on the internet that was written at this reading level, even
> when text was targeted at early primary school students.
> From the examples that we were able to find, we think that this reading
> level target would limit authors severely and could not be satisfied for
> most content.
>
> We are also concerned that while reading level is a testable property of
> text, it is a fairly crude measure of how easy the content is to
> understand.  We think that the needs of people with cognitive
> disabilities will be better met if authors follow the advisory
> techniques on using clear and easy to understand language, rather than
> try to write at an unrealistic reading level.
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> INCLUSION EUROPE COMMENT:
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> "We were able to find very few examples of text on the internet that was
> written at this reading level..."
>
> This is the problem that adults with intellectual disabilities are
> facing: Although the internet is nowadays the most important
> communication tool, it is not accessible for them. There is very little
> information adapted to their needs. Thus, the point that presently
> little information exist for this groups points to the need for clearer
> standards.
>
> This is why we ask from the authors to provide besides the original text
> alternative versions that match the needs of this group of people as
> soon as the content requires a higher level of comprehension than the
> primary education level.

Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 23:33:15 UTC