Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Draft of April 2006

Dear Matthew Magain ,

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

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Comment 1:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/20060526022027.C740333205@kearny.w3.org
(Issue ID: LC-646)

Part of Item:
Comment Type: GE
Comment (including rationale for proposed change):

I disagree strongly with the concept of having a baseline. By NOT
specifying a minimum technology set of HTML, then site owners are
essentially given free range over choosing to only support the
technology that they want, regardless of whether any accessible user
agent for rendering that technology is in existence. This goes against
the grain of the W3C\'s underlying philosophy of making Web content
available to anyone. If the W3C want WCAG to be future-proofed, it
should encompass existing technologies, and evolve with version 3.0
when new technologies become in use, not pre-empt them through by
being ambiguous.

Proposed Change:

That WCAG 2.0 specify HTML as a minimum technology for making
information accessible. That existing technologies be incorporated
into WCAG using specific guidelines for current user agents.

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

The conformance section of WCAG2 has been completely rewritten. The
term "baseline" has been replaced by "accessibility-supported Web
technologies". The issue of what it means to be an
accessibility-supported Web technology is addressed in the section
"Accessibility Support of Web Technologies" at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/#accessibility-support .

WCAG 2.0 is technology neutral, so it would be inappropriate to
require any specific technology, such as HTML. (We would,
nevertheless, be surprised to find environments that did not consider
HTML to be accessibility supported).

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

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/20060526022218.9C87F33205@kearny.w3.org
(Issue ID: LC-647)

Part of Item:
Comment Type: GE
Comment (including rationale for proposed change):

The exclusion of validity is a huge step backwards for web
accessibility. A valid document ensures consistent rendering,
regardless of user agent.

Proposed Change:

That validity be added as a requirement for conformance to success criteria.

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

The working group looked at this topic carefully over an extended
period of time and concluded that requiring strict adherence to all
aspects of specifications does not necessarily result in an increase
in accessibility. For example, it is possible to create invalid pages
that present no accessibility barriers. It is also possible in certain
situations to enhance accessibility through the use of markup that is
not part of the specification.

The working group must work within its charter and only include things
that directly affected accessibility. Some aspects of "use
technologies according to specification" and validity do relate to
accessibility. However, others do not. So requiring validity would
take us beyond our charter. We do recommend it though and it is our #1
technique listed for conforming to SC 4.1.1.

Received on Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:42:11 UTC