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

Dear Martin Stehle,

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: WCAG 2.0 and sign language
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0056.html
(Issue ID: 1982)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

> Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/927584643.20060523115257@snafu.de
> (Issue ID: LC-591)

> Comment (including rationale for any proposed change):

> Reasons of why using sign language videos are wrong.

> Proposed Change:

> Replace it with: "The intent of this success criterion is to enable
> people who are deaf or hard of hearing and who are fluent in the sign
> language to understand whole texts. Many people, especially native
> signers, find it easier to follow sign language than to read the text,
> since the text are often a second language to them."

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

> The intent section for 1.2.5 has been revised to read:

> The intent of this success criterion is to enable people who are deaf
> or hard of hearing and who are fluent in a sign language to understand
> the content of the audio track of multimedia presentations. Written
> text, such as that found in captions, is often a second language. Some
> individuals will require sign language interpretation to gain full
> access to the multimedia content.

The last sentence ist not wrong, but uncompleted. It is not only to
gain full access to multimedia content, it is also to gain access to
whole texts. The home page, the articles, news, the blog entries etc.,
are texts. Many native signers do not misinterpretate sign language
videos, but written text. Not only in captions, but whole texts in
pages. This is a very important topic when it comes to web sites form
authorities, like government agencies, municipal authorities etc.

Till now the WCAG 2.0 draft let conclude: if there is multimedia
content, then one has to offer sign language videos. If there is no
multimedia content, one does not need to offer such videos. This is
the conclusion I find misleading.

So the emplyoment of sign language videos should not limited to to
existence of multimedia content only, but to whole texts. So this
should be a new "Guideline 1.5: "Provide content alternatives in sign
language". This guideline could be extended with "and
easy-to-understand language".

In Germany there are many web sites from the federal government and
lower authorities who included sign language videos to transform the
texts. Even a financial institute, Deutsche Bank, uses such videos:
http://www.bundesbank.de/aufgaben/aufgaben_dgs.php

This topic applies accordingly to Comment 7.


> ----------------------------------------------------------
> Comment 7:

> Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/927584643.20060523115257@snafu.de
> (Issue ID: LC-595)

> Comment (including rationale for any proposed change):

> The thesis "People whose primary language is a sign language sometimes
> have limited reading ability" is not always true. The reading ability
> of native signers is broad, from low to top. The focus on captions is
> not meeting the reality. Many native signers are able to understand
> captions. The focus has to move to the complete content, i.e. the
> texts.

> Proposed Change:

> Replace it with "These individuals may not be able to read and
> comprehend the textual contents and thus require a sign language
> interpretation to gain access to the multimedia content."

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

> We have adopted your recommendation  into the intent sections for SC
> 1.2.5 with a slight revision to indicate that this isn't true for all.
> It now reads as follows:

> 'The intent of this success criterion is to enable people who are deaf
> or hard of hearing and who are fluent in the sign language to
> understand the content of the audio track of multimedia presentations.
> Written text, such as that found in captions is often a second
> language to them. Some of these individuals may not be able to read
> and comprehend the textual content of captions or may not be able to
> read it quickly enough and thus require a sign language interpretation
> to gain access to the multimedia content.'

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

The working group believes that because sign language provides the
ability to provide intonation, emotion and other audio information
that is reflected in sign language interpretation, but not in
captions, sign language interpretation provides richer and more
equivalent access to multimedia. People who communicate extensively in
sign language are also faster in sign language and multimedia is a
time-based presentation. Success Criterion 1.2.5 addresses the special
problem introduced by multimedia.

We recognize that many people who are Deaf will find sign language
interpretation much easier to understand and interact with than text
or captions. Guideline 3.1 includes an advisory technique to provide
sign language interpretation for all content:

Providing sign language interpretation for all content (future link)

----------------------------------------------------------
Comment 2: disagree with sentence in intent
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0056.html
(Issue ID: 1983)
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

> Source: http://www.w3.org/mid/927584643.20060523115257@snafu.de
> (Issue ID: LC-597)

> Comment (including rationale for any proposed change):

> The note "Different sites may address...sufficient by the working
> group" is a little bit misleading in case of deaf people.

> Proposed Change:

> Please add to the note that in case of deaf people it is wrong to
> think about deaf people as human beings not able to understand "texts
> above upper secondary education level". It is not about cognitive
> impairments, it is about linguistic matters. It is just that many deaf
> people understand sign language better than written language, because
> sign language is their mother tongue. With sign language "texts above
> upper secondary education level" are more understandable for deaf
> people.

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

> Thanks you for your suggestion. We have replaced the sentence

> "For sites designed for people who are deaf a sign language version of
> the page may be most useful for users who cannot understand the text
> well."

> with the sentence

> "For some people who are deaf, a sign language version of the page may
> be easier to understand than a written language version since sign
> language may be their first language."

> ----------------------------------------------------------


This is ok. But I disagree with the sentence before: "But if a site is
intended for individuals who are deaf, providing an audio file would
not be useful." Please delete it, because no-where in the WCAG 2.0
documents there is phrase like "a site intended for individuals who
are blind" or "a site intended for individuals who has motor
impairments". A web site is intended for all users, and I think the
WCAG documents should transport this idea.

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

We have removed that sentence.

Received on Sunday, 4 November 2007 05:00:31 UTC