Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Draft of April 2006

Dear Gottfried Zimmermann ,

Thank you for your comments on the 2006 Last Call Working Draft of the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-WCAG20-20060427/). We appreciate the
interest that you have taken in these guidelines.

We apologize for the delay in getting back to you. We received many
constructive comments, and sometimes addressing one issue would cause
us to revise wording covered by an earlier issue. We therefore waited
until all comments had been addressed before responding to commenters.

This message contains the comments you submitted and the resolutions
to your comments. Each comment includes a link to the archived copy of
your original comment on
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/, and may
also include links to the relevant changes in the updated WCAG 2.0
Public Working Draft at http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/.

PLEASE REVIEW the decisions  for the following comments and reply to
us by 7 June at public-comments-WCAG20@w3.org to say whether you are
satisfied with the decision taken. Note that this list is publicly
archived.

We also welcome your comments on the rest of the updated WCAG 2.0
Public Working Draft by 29 June 2007. We have revised the guidelines
and the accompanying documents substantially. A detailed summary of
issues, revisions, and rationales for changes is at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/05/change-summary.html . Please see
http://www.w3.org/WAI/ for more information about the current review.

Thank you,

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 1:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/01e101c69555$d3fcd9c0$6c00a8c0@ThinkPadR40
(Issue ID: LC-939)

The note in section "Conformance notes" states conformance for the
case of content negotiation. The requirement that only the page
returned with no content negotiation needs to comply with WCAG 2.0 is
too weak, with regard to content negotiation for alternate language
delivery. A page should comply for all of its language versions.

As an example, consider a website where only the English version
(default for content negotiation on language) is accessible according
to WCAG 2.0. The website could claim conformance although all
non-English users would get inaccessible web pages through their user
agents.

Proposed Change:

Add to the note: "Exception: This note does not apply for alternative
language versions being delivered through content negotiation. A Web
unit conforms to WCAG 2.0 only if all its language versions conform."

----------------------------
Response from Working Group:
----------------------------

We have removed the requirement about content negotiation. However, we
have added the following to the conformance criterion on alternate
versions:

If multiple language versions can be negotiated, then conformant
versions are required for each language offered.

----------------------------------------------------------
Comment 2:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/01e101c69555$d3fcd9c0$6c00a8c0@ThinkPadR40
(Issue ID: LC-940)

These success criteria would make a web page with multiple language
versions compliant, with only one version being conformant and the
others being inaccessible. We need to exempt alternative language
versions from this success criterion. This should be mentioned and the
definition of "alternate version(s)" should be amended
correspondingly.

Essence: An accessible page in Korean is not an equivalent alternative
for an inaccessable page in Urdu.

Proposed Change:

Add to 4.2.1 and 4.2.3: "This does not apply to alternate versions
serving different languages."

Also, change the definition of "alternate version(s)" to exclude
versions serving different languages, e.g.: "version that provides all
of the same information and functionality in the same natural language
and is as up to date as any non-conformant content".

----------------------------
Response from Working Group:
----------------------------

We have revised the definition of "alternate version" to clarify that
the versions must use the same natural language. In reworking the
conformance section, we have also added:
If multiple language versions can be negotiated, then conformant
versions are required for each language offered."

Received on Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:34:31 UTC