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

Dear Sofia Celic,

Thank you for your comments on the 17 May 2007 Public Working Draft of
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20070517/). The WCAG Working Group
has reviewed all comments received on the May draft, and will be
publishing an updated Public Working Draft shortly. Before we do that,
we would like to know whether we have understood your comments
correctly, and also whether you are satisfied with our resolutions.

Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to
us by 19 November 2007 at public-comments-wcag20@w3.org to say whether
you are satisfied. Note that this list is publicly archived. Note also
that we are not asking for new issues, nor for an updated review of
the entire document at this time.

Please see below for the text of comments that you submitted and our
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 WCAG 2.0 Editor's
Draft of May-October 2007 at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20071102/

Thank you for your time reviewing and sending comments. Though we
cannot always do exactly what each commenter requests, all of the
comments are valuable to the development of WCAG 2.0.

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

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Comment 1: Prohibiting images of important text
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0299.html
(Issue ID: 2128)
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Original Comment:
----------------------------

Currently WCAG 2.0 allows the use of images of text. Some user groups
with low vision may miss important content where text within images
contains important information. This may be because the user requires
a particular visual presentation of the content, such as a particular
font size or combination of foreground and background colours to be
able to perceive the text.

WCAG 2.0 currently has an advisory technique for Success Criterion
1.4.4 of "Avoiding the use of text in raster images". We do not feel
this is sufficient at an advisory technique status.

If images of important text are allowed these user groups would need
to "turn images off" to be able to apply their presentation needs to
the text alternative. Here are some problems with that:

- This is something most users would not know of, let alone how to do it.

- In Internet Explorer (still the most common use browser) the user
would be required to make changes in the 'Advanced' tab (in Internet
Options) to stop image downloads. Not many people are comfortable
making changes in the "Advanced" area of any program. Also, the
setting to display all of the text alternative of an image would be
required (again an 'Advanced' setting in IE).

- Image text alternatives do not necessarily render at the same size
as the surrounding text

- Viewing a page with image text alternatives potentially results in
content being shifted so as to confuse the visual reading order;
overlapping image text alternative with other text in the page; and
cropped image alt text; generally making the content harder or
impossible to read.

- users may not be able to change browser settings in some
circumstances (such as at their place of employment where access to
settings is prohibited or limited)

Another important area is that of accessing image maps. How would a
user accessing pages with images off necessarily know of the presence
of an image map, let alone be able to access the map regions? Most
browsers do not render the text alternative for and outlines of map
regions. This issue goes beyond images of text so we are also
submitting a separate comment regarding image maps.

Proposed Change:
Add a success criterion at Level A or AA that prohibits use of images
containing important text.

We acknowledge that the success criterion may need to include some
exceptions, such as where the important text is already provided as
text, or where logos are concerned.

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

We have added a new success criterion to address images of text at Level AAA:
"Images of text are only used for pure decoration or where a
particular presentation of text is essential to the information being
conveyed."

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Comment 2: resizing of form controls
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0396.html
(Issue ID: 2262)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

The current draft appears not to deal with ensuring form controls can
be resized along with changes in text size.

Forms are used on many sites but often the form controls do not resize
even when the text around them does. This can result in a user with
low vision being able to read the text information for a form and the
text labels, but not be able to read the text in a drop-down box,
check their own input in a text field or to locate radio buttons and
checkboxes.

Success criterion 1.4.4 (Visually rendered text can be resized without
assistive technology up to 200 percent and down to 50 percent without
loss of content or functionality.) deals with the scaling of text
size. It doesn't specify whether this applies to text-based form
controls. If so, this needs to be clarified with additional text in
the Understanding document and the addition of applicable sufficient
techniques.

However, there are also non-text-based form controls - radio buttons
and checkboxes - that are required to resize along with changes in
text size. This may mean another success criterion is required to
cover all types of form controls.

In the event that form controls are considered technology specific, a
more generic success criterion would be required.

Proposed Change:
Add a success criterion that covers the resizing of form controls.

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

We think this should be a User Agent guideline, and just an
advisory/repair  technique in WCAG. If text is big enough to be
useful, it will be so big that designers won't want to use it. If some
elements scale and others don't, the layout is likely to get messed
up.  Whether that's a barrier or not depends on whether content or
functionality is lost, but it's much eaiser to get this right when
everything scales such as a user agent zoom, commercial AT, or
operating system magnification. However we have added a sufficient
technique for 1.4.4: "Specifying the size of objects in terms of the
font size"

By the time WCAG reaches recommendation, we expect Zoom features in
browsers will become more and more used among people who need moderate
amounts of zoom. We realize that this is not perfect, but we think it
is the best compromise given the alternatives.

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Comment 3: viewing size of non-text content without alternatives
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0404.html
(Issue ID: 2269)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

Multimedia objects that are embedded into a web page generally can not
be resized, meaning some user groups may not be able to access the
information it contains.

A text alternative should be provided for these objects but it may not
be appropriate (such as exception point 2 - media, test, sensory - in
success criterion 1.1.1) or it may not provide an equivalent
experience.

With some multimedia, being able to resize the object would be
sufficient to access the information (without needing to resort to an
alternative - where an alternative is available). For example, a Flash
movie showing how something is done may only require a slightly bigger
rendering to be fully accessible for some users.

Some options to satisfy this may be:

- allowing the user to load the multimedia object into a stand-alone
player where it can be resized.

- providing the user with options for the size at which to view the
multimedia object.

Similarly, other non-text content that can not have an equivalent text
alternative provided (such as exception 3 - CAPTCHA - in success
criterion 1.1.1) could also become accessible for some users if it is
provided at a different size. For example, a CAPTCHA image may be
difficult to "read" for some users with low vision purely because of
the size at which it is provided. In this case the user would be able
to "read" the CAPTCHA if it was provided at a larger size.

Proposed Change:
Add a success criterion requiring non-text content be provided at
different viewing sizes in situations where the non-text content can
not have an equivalent accessible alternative provided.

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

You have identified a problem that is an accessibility issue, but we
do not have enough information about realistic sufficient techniques
for all such situations to include this as a success criterion at this
time. We are adding your suggestion as advisory techniques for 1.1.1
and 1.4.4, and we think this should be considered for possible future
versions of WCAG.

Received on Sunday, 4 November 2007 02:16:07 UTC