Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft of December, 2007

Dear Masafuni Nakane,

Thank you for your comments on the 11 Dec 2007 Last Call Working Draft
of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-WCAG20-20071211). The WCAG Working Group
has reviewed all comments received on the December draft. Before we
proceed to implementation, we would like to know whether we have
understood your comments correctly and whether you are satisfied with
our resolutions.

Please review our resolutions for the following comments, and reply to
us by 31 March 2008 at public-comments-wcag20@w3.org to say whether
you accept them or to discuss additional concerns you have with our
response. Note that this list is publicly archived.

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 10 March 2008 at
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20080310/.

Note that if you still strongly disagree with our resolution on an issue,
you have the opportunity to file a formal objection (according to
3.3.2 of the W3C Process, at
http://www.w3.org/2005/10/Process-20051014/policies.html#WGArchiveMinorityViews)
to public-comments-wcag20@w3.org. Formal objections will be reviewed
during the candidate recommendation transition meeting with the W3C
Director, unless we can come to agreement with you on a resolution in
advance of the meeting.

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: Several Success Criteria include specific values
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2008Feb/0033.html
(Issue ID: 2485)
Status: VERIFIED / NOT ACCEPTED
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

Several Success Criteria present specific values.   (Ones I was able
to spot are SC 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 1.4.4, 1.4.6, 1.4.7, 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.5,
and 2.3.1.)   Although it is understandable to include  specific
values in these SC in order to make them testable, I strongly believe
these specific values should not be mentioned in normative part of the
document, unless every expert agrees that there will never be any
future research, clinical experience, etc., which suggests different
values than one shown in these SC.  These values should be moved out
to the understanding document, so that any future research, etc., will
not affect the normative part of the document.

Proposed Change:
Move such specific values to the Understanding WCAG document together
with references to good supporting document for them.

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

The values in the success criteria are based on both research and
clinical input that has been gathered over a long period.

As you point out, the provisions you cite would not be testable
without specific target values. If the success criteria are not
testable, then one cannot have 'sufficient techniques' to meet them.
And, adding values in the informative section cannot be used to make
provisions testable.

If future research indicates different values, they would be changed
in a revision or future version of WCAG.


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Comment 2: It is unclear if this SC is testable.
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2008Feb/0034.html
(Issue ID: 2486)
Status: VERIFIED / PARTIAL/OTHER
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

How would one determine if content of a page requires more than
lower-secondary education level?  Also, when effort is made to make
the content readable without upper-secondary level education, how
would one determine if it actually is so?  In short, is this SC
testable?

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

The concept of reading level is widely used within education. A number
of tests are available for evaluating a student's reading level, in
order to determine the appropriate level of books to be reading. An
example is the Lexile Framework for Reading (http://www.lexile.com) ,
which includes a database of books and their measures.

Tools are available in some languages for evaluating the reading level
of text. We recommend confirming what classification system is used by
the schools in the educational system for the human language of the
text.

After simplifying the language to make the content readable without
upper-secondary level education, the text should be evaluated again.
If it still evaluates at too high a level, it will be necessary to
provide supplemental information to satisfy the success criterion.

Received on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:20:17 UTC