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

It is not possible for every web page author to find testers with
every range and combination of every physical and/or cognitive
disability. And it is not possible to evaluation a web page and
determine whether it has been tested by people with disabilities.

WCAG attempts to extract our best understanding of the properties and
characteristics of web page that cause difficulties for people with
different disabilities, in a way that can be understood and followed
by authors who are not experts in this field.

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


> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Comment 5: Human testers should always be persons with disabilities
> Source:
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0305.
> html
> (Issue ID: 2160)
> ----------------------------
> Original Comment:
> ----------------------------
>
> In the organizational section, it is stipulated that "some WCAG 2.0
> success criteria require human testers for part or all of the test".
> Inclusion Europe would like to emphasize that those human testers must
> always be people with different kinds of disabilities themselves.
>
> Proposed Change:
> To change the text of the second paragraph of the point "Success
> Criteria" under Organization of the WCAG 2.0 document as follows:
>
> All WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written to be testable. While some can
> be tested by computer programs, others require human testers for part or
> all of the test. Human testers must always be persons with disabilities
> themselves.
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> Response from Working Group:
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> A methodology for conformance evaluation requires the involvement of
> human testers, but WCAG 2.0 does not define requirements with regard to
> such an evaluation methodology. While we encourage authors to test their
> Web pages with a wide variety of users, including users with
> disabilities, this is not necessary to conform to WCAG.
>
> Our current intro has been shortened and there is only a part of single
> sentence that mentions testing as follows.
>
> "WCAG 2.0 builds on WCAG 1.0 [WCAG10] and is designed to apply broadly
> to different Web technologies now and in the future, and to be testable
> with a combination of automated testing and human evaluation."
>
> However in our Understanding WCAG document we go into more detail as
> follows:
>
> "All WCAG 2.0 success criteria are written as testable criteria for
> objectively determining if content satisfies them. Testing the success
> criteria would involve a combination of automated testing and human
> evaluation. The content should be tested by those who understand how
> people with different types of disabilities use the Web.
>
> "Testing and testable in the context refer to functional testing, that
> is verifying that the content functions as expected, or in this case,
> that it satisfies the success criteria. Although content may satisfy all
> success criteria, the content may not always be usable by people with a
> wide variety of disabilities. Therefore, usability testing is
> recommended, in addition to the required functional testing. Usability
> testing aims to determine how well people can use the content for its
> intended purpose. It is recommended that users with disabilities be
> included in test groups when performing usability testing."
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> INCLUSION EUROPE COMMENT:
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> "The content should be tested by those who understand how people with
> different types of disabilities use the Web."
>
> Inclusion Europe believes that it is quite naive to expect a
> non-disabled tester to understand how a person with very limited
> intellectual abilities (or equally people with other disabilities) will
> use the web. The best qualified persons to understand how people with
> disabilities use the web are people with disabilities themselves!
>
> Therefore, we cannot do less than asking once again to change the text
> by saying "While some can be tested by computer programs, others require
> human testers for part or all of the test. Human testers must always be
> persons with different disabilities themselves.
>

Received on Tuesday, 11 December 2007 23:54:33 UTC