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

Dear Eric Hansen,

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: Complete Process requirement
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2298)
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Original Comment:
----------------------------

A. Processes. I am not sure what to make of the "complete processes"
requirement. Is it correct that to reach a certain level of
conformance, all of the following must be true:

                1. All Pages Must Conform. All primary content pages
specified via
URIs in claim must conform (though resources for primary or alternate
versions may use resources that go beyond the URIs in the claim).

                2. No Page May Be Part of a Process That Includes a
Non-Conforming
Page. No primary (or it is primary and alternate version) content page
may be part of a process that has a nonconforming page.

I could be mistaken but I think that the document may not be specific
about the locations of alternative versions (point 1). Also, I not
sure that point 2 is made clearly enough. I am not sure I see any
guidelines or success criteria that enforce or clarify the conformance
requirement of point 2. I am not sure at this time whether it is
practical or necessary to do more than you have done, but I am also
uncomfortable with some vagueness about the scope of things that would
be considered processes.

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

The answer to your first question is "correct." However, the location
of the alternate is not specified. As long as the user can get to it,
we do not see a reason to specify a particular location.   The
"complete process" is a conformance requirement but not a success
criterion because the success criteria all deal with pages and it
would confound scoping if it were at a success criterion level.

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Comment 2: alternate versions and URIs
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2299)
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Original Comment:
----------------------------

B. URIs and alternate version and supplemental content. I presume that
the URIs in the claim pertain essentially to primary content. Is it
the case that other URIs (not the claim) might be accessed for
alternate versions or even supplemental content? I wonder if the
location of supplemental content must be accessed with the URIs in the
claim.

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

The alternate URI language is removed and replaced with a requirement
that the mechanism be accessibility supported.   This ensures that it
can be reached from the content.

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Comment 3: user agent vs assistive technology
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2300)
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Original Comment:
----------------------------

C. Kinds of User Agents. The document may benefit from better
distinguishing between assistive technologies and host or base user
agents. Sometimes the usage gets a little muddy. At one point the
document refers user agents and assistive technologies while it seems
to me that it should have said assistive technologies and other user
agents.

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

Thanks.  We have tried to clean up both the introduction and the
conformance section to make this clearer.   We removed the instance of
"user agents and assistive technologies", making it be "including"
instead of "and".   And we were more careful about use of both and how
they relate to each other.

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Comment 4: characteristics of users
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2301)
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Original Comment:
----------------------------

D. Users. The document is oriented around "users" but never makes
explicit the characteristics that of that group. Therefore, if a web
site had users that had no disabilities, then would the actual number
and variety of accessibility features that WCAG 2 requires be
substantially less than for a web site with users with a wide range of
disabilities.

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

  It would be useful for people reading the Guidelines to have a good
overview of people with disabilities and their assistive technologies.
 However a good review of the different disabilities and their AT is
beyond the scope or capabilities of the guidelines.   We have added a
note to the introduction to Understanding WCAG 2.0 pointing people to
references.

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Comment 5: Editorial suggestions
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2302)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

See Word document attached to comment submission:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/att-0410/WCAG2-ver17May2007-Eric_Hansen_comments-29Jun2007.doc

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

Thanks for both rounds of edits.  They were very instrumental in
improving the guidelines. Since we reviewed all the edits individually
for both rounds via email and phone and cleared them we won't go into
more detail here.

Thanks again.

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Comment 6: Much improved
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0410.html
(Issue ID: 2303)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

The document is much improved from the last time I reviewed it. A lot
of great work has gone into this.

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

Thank you. A lot of time and effort
has gone into the draft and it has been difficult at times to find the best
language to express the requirements and advice when it needs to apply
across such a wide (and expanding) variety of technologies. We think that,
although not perfect, this draft is a significant advance in the right
direction. We look forward to new research that is being done on the Web
and on Accessibility that will allow us to go even further in future
efforts.

Received on Sunday, 4 November 2007 04:25:08 UTC