Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Draft of April 2006 (2 of 8)

Comment 15:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1034)

Baseline - Has the WG given any thought to people who decide to turn
off technologies that could be in a baseline (eg. Javascript, Flash
etc) because that is their preferred way of browsing - due to their
disability?  Has the WG given any thought to people who use assistive
technologies that cannot interpret the output of certain technologies
(eg. some screen readers cannot use javascript)?

Proposed Change:

Remove the baseline theory, or allow only UAAG compliant programs in baseline.

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

The working group has debated issues such as these extensively. The
concept of baseline (now "accessibility-supported content
technologies") grew out those struggles. If the assistive technologies
that people use do not support certain technologies, then those
technologies are not accessibility-supported Web technologies.
However, people turning off support for technologies because they
prefer not to use them is not an accessibility issue, since people
without disabilities who choose to disable certain technologies will
have equal difficulty accessing the content.

Your proposal is that the only technologies that can be used are those
for which there exist UAAG-compliant user agents. Since there are not
yet any fully UAAG-compliant user agents, this requirement would mean
that there could be no WCAG-complaint content possible. And the
existence of a UAAG-compliant user agent doesn't mean that users have
it available to them. So requiring UAAG-compliant user agents is not a
guarantee of accessibility (although WCAG would be much easier to
write if it could rely on UAAG compliant user agents).

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Comment 16:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1035)

Baseline - The theory of baseline will not stop a developer choosing
an inappropriate and inaccessible baseline.

Proposed Change:

Remove the baseline theory, or allow only UAAG compliant programs in baseline.

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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term "baseline" has been replaced by "accessibility-supported Web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 .

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Comment 17:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1037)

Baseline - I believe it is not possible to fully comment on baseline
due to the lack of a definition and the statement "The W3C-WAI may
also prepare "A Guide for Policy Makers" to help organizations choose
a baseline that will ensure the maximum accessibility for their
environments". This policy document is mandatory to fully understand
baseline and how it is to be applied.

Proposed Change:

Develop "A Guide for Policy Makers" and allow the public to comment
prior to releasing WCAG2 as a W3C Recommendation

----------------------------
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 .

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Comment 18:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1038)

Baseline - Under 'Additional information' it says that a conformance
claim "CANNOT specify physical, sensory or cognitive requirements". Is
the conformance claim not allowed to say "We have developed this site
specifically for people with vision impairments" - because that is
something that would be important to a vision impairment organisation.

Proposed Change:

This section needs to delineate between specifying actual physical,
sensory or cognitive requirements a person needs to access a site, via
physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities that are catered for

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

We have rewritten the conformance section, and this statement has been removed.

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Comment 19:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1039)

Baseline - The dates need to be changed in all the examples. One
example date is 23 March 2005. All dates should be after the estimated
date of release for WCAG2

Proposed Change:

All dates should be after the estimated date of release for WCAG2

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

Thank you.  All dates in examples are changed to 2008 so they will
look fresh for a while after release.

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Comment 20:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1040)

Vertical scoping - Vertical scoping outlaws saying "This site complies
except for all movies and animations" but does not outlaw putting all
movies and animations in a subdirectory (eg "movies") and scoping out
that subdirectory (eg. Www.site.com/movies). It also doesn't outlaw a
supermarket site saying "This site complies except for the shopping
cart" or a bank web site saying "This site complies except for the
internet banking section."

Proposed Change:

Remove the concept of vertical scoping.

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

The "Scope out" language has now been removed from the Conformance
section and conformance is now based on Web page(s): that is a primary
resource referenced by a URI and any other resources that are rendered
simultaneously with it with the understanding that different sub
elements or resources may be rendered simultaneously with the primary
resource at different points in time. The conformance claim process
requires the claimant to state which URIs the claim applies to.

We have also added a conformance criterion regarding pages that are
part of a process:

Complete processes: If a Web page that is part of a process does not
conform at some level, then no conformance claim is made at that level
for any Web pages in that process.

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Comment 21:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1041)

Baseline - The section "Initial Guidance" is even more confusing than
other parts of the documents. There are no definitions or rules for
following baseline, just examples in this section.

Proposed Change:

Develop "A Guide for Policy Makers" and allow the public to comment
prior to releasing WCAG2 as a W3C Recommendation. Develop a document,
for use with WCAG2, that list suitable technologies for baseline. This
document can be updated by the WG or the W3C every year. Provide a
definition for baseline.

----------------------------
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 .

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Comment 22:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1042)

Content negotiation: In Conformance it says "Note: If multiple
representations can be retrieved from a URI through content
negotiation, then the conformance claim would be for the Web unit that
is returned when no negotiation is conducted (unless the server
returns an error for that condition, in which case one of the
negotiated forms must comply)". Does the WG mean that if there is
content negotiation, that only one version of the content need be
accessible? What about if one version of content provides more
information than the accessible version? That would be a violation of
WCAG1 and should be a violation of WCAG2

Proposed Change:

Firstly it should be required that all content from different
representations is available from the accessible version. Secondly, at
Level 3 it should be required that all versions of content should be
accessible.

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

The content negotiation requirement has been removed. Alternate
version is defined as "a version that provides all of the same
information and functionality in the same human language and is as up
to date as the non-conforming content" Because multiple versions may
be provided to accommodate different sets of accessibility-supported
Web technologies, to be tuned to specific disabilities, or to
accommodate vagaries of different browsers, WCAG does not require that
all versions satisfy all the success criterion for any level of
conformance. Only one version needs to fully conform. We do require
that: 4.) Alternate Versions: If the Web page does not meet all of the
success criteria for a specified level, then a mechanism to obtain an
alternate version that meets all of the success criteria can be
derived from the nonconforming content or its URI, and that mechanism
meets all success criteria for the specified level of conformance. The
alternate version does not need to be matched page for page with the
original (e.g. the alternative to a page may consist of multiple
pages). If multiple language versions are available, then conforming
versions are required for each language offered.
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Comment 23:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1043)

Definition: "For all non-text content one of the following is true…if
non-text content is pure decoration, or used only for visual
formatting, or if it is not presented to users, it is implemented such
that it can be ignored by assistive technology".  What is the
definition of assistive technology?  If one assistive technology
behaves one way and another assistive technology another, then how
should this SC be followed?

Proposed Change:

Redefine this SC

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

Assistive technology is defined in the Glossary at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/appendixA.html#atdef .

Technology-specific techniques define sufficient mechanisms for
marking non-text content so that it will be ignored by AT. If there
are differences in behavior among different AT, these should be noted
in the User Agent notes for that technique.

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Comment 24:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1044)

Term: success criteria -  The term "Success Criteria" is not explained
in the "Important new terms used in WCAG 2.0" section of the WCAG2
document

Proposed Change:

The term "Success Criteria" should be added to the "Important new
terms used in WCAG 2.0" section of the WCAG2 document

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

We have added a paragraph to this section that describes the term. See
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/#overview-sc .

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Comment 25:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1045)

Term: Programmatically determined - The definition for
"programmatically determined" is "determined by software from data
provided in a user-agent supported manner such that the user agents
can extract and present this information to users in different
modalities". What is the definition by "user agent supported manner"?
Does this mean that even if only one user agent on only on version of
an operating system can extract the information then it complies?
What about people with colour blindness? If faced with an image they
can't interpret due to colour blindness, they could just use a colour
picker tool which will tell them the hex values of each pixel and
determine the contents of an image that way.

Proposed Change:

Redefine SC that use the term programmatically determined

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

The notion of "programmatically determined" is basic to the success
criteria that use it; we don't see a way of redefining those success
criteria not to use the concept.

The first issue in "programmatically determined" is making sure that
the information is represented in the technology in a way that is
clear and unambiguous within the capabilities of that technology. Many
of the most serious issues addressed by requiring that information be
programmatically determined have to do with authors implying
information via visual presentation, rather than encoding it
explicitly in the technology.

We put extensive work into the difficult issue that you identify, of
"which assistive technology"? The basic answer is that it is the
assistive technology available to the audience. Individual techniques
identify issues with specific versions of user agents and assistive
technology, so that authors can make informed decisions about whether
the techniques are acceptable for their audience.

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Comment 26:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1046)

2.2.1 & 2.2.3: As previously discussed, further details should be
provided when timeouts is an important part of a real-time event or an
activity when timing is essential.

Proposed Change:

I am happy to write an additional set of criteria (with Loretta)

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

We have modified the fourth bullet of SC 2.2.1 to be testable by
removing the word "important". And we have moved the auction example
from How To Meet SC 2.2.3 to How To Meet SC 2.2.1.


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Comment 27:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1047)

2.2.2: Why is blinking allowed for three seconds?

Proposed Change:

Explain the meaning behind this SC

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

A number had to be chosen for testability per the WCAG requirements
document. The following rationale for 3 seconds is provided in "How to
Meet Success Criterion 2.2.2":

"Three seconds was chosen because it is long enough to get a user's
attention, but not so long that a user can not wait it out if
necessary in order to use the page and the blinking blocks their
ability to focus on the page."

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Comment 28:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1048)

2.2.5: This should be L1 or there should be a L1 equivalent.

Proposed Change:

For example, it should not be possible to update a page every ten
seconds under L1 otherwise people using screen readers won't be able
to access all the content before the page refreshes.

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

Automatic page refreshes or updates are a type of time limit covered
by SC 2.2.1, which is a Level A success criterion.

See SC 2.2.1 at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/#time-limits-required-behaviors
.

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Comment 29:

Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/000901c69538$2e394450$f4c9b23a@tkhcomputer
(Issue ID: LC-1049)

2.3.2: This should be L2 or there should be a L2 equivalent

Proposed Change:

Create L2 equivalent

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

Because of the limitations that SC 3.2.3 places on presentation, the
working group feels that level AAA is appropriate. Not all Guidelines
have success criteria at every level.

Received on Thursday, 17 May 2007 23:47:33 UTC