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

Dear Sheena McCullagh,

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: Sufficient techniques seems to contradict other areas and principles.
Source: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2008Feb/0024.html
(Issue ID: 2476)
Status: VERIFIED / PARTIAL/OTHER
----------------------------
Original Comment:
----------------------------

This actually covers Techniques and Intent, but I couldn't select two
options on one form and didn't want to separate them as they are
inter-related.

I am dyslexic and need specific colour combinations in order to read
accurately. I am also a web writer.

Intent - second paragraph.  The last sentence contradicts the rest of
the paragraph.  If the only choices we have are from a selection
designated by the web writers, it negates what you are saying
(accurately) in the rest of the paragraph, ie the need to be able to
select our own combinations.  Recent optimal combinations for dyslexic
people that I have come across - blue text on a white ground (2
people). The inverse of this (2 people).  Green text on a white ground
(2 people) and black text on a green ground (1 person).

In addition, we dyslexics need extra visual clues, so changing all the
text on a page to one colour and all the background to one (different)
colour, which is usually what happens when selecting options from
pre-set combinations, can actually make things worse.  (See also PAS
78:2006 from the British Standards Institute, section 5.6, page 16.  I
have this as a Word document, so could email it to you if you wish to
see it.)

Sufficient techniques - First bullet point of 1. Surely it should be
to NOT specify and apply to HTML as well as CSS? (c/w G148 from the
techniques document.)  NB not specifying any can cause the same
problems of loss of visual clues as described above in the Intent
section.

Second bullet point is not applicable to many dyslexics and therefore
shouldn't be used as an 'or' option to allow success at meeting this
criterion.  Having this option only would still make pages
inaccessible to many of us.  Most dyslexics who need specific colours
need to change text colours as well as, if not in place of, background
colours. For those of us that need specific text colours, changing the
background and leaving the text as (usually) black, can be worse than
black on white.  This also seems to contradict the second paragraph of
the Intent of this success criterion.  Would it not also cause an
automatic failure of 1.4.3 as the text colour would be specified, but
the background be left to user selection, ie if none is selected the
background is unspecified?

Bullet point three - as mentioned above, we need visual clues, even if
we are being allowed to choose our specific combinations rather than
picking from pre-set combinations, the problems of changing the entire
page to those two colours still applies (see comments above under
Intent.)

Bullet point four - this is the only one that really works, although,
'blocks of text', as per your definition at the bottom of the page is
too small an amount.  It needs to be an entire section of the page, eg
the whole of the main content, the whole of the navigation, the whole
of the banner.  In effect 'sections of the page'.

A next best option is for the web designer to specify colours for
things like page banners and navigation, but leave the colours of the
main content of the page completely unspecified so that the page
displays in the colours that the user has set in their
browser/computer properties.

Proposed Change:
Intent - Paragraph two.  Remove last sentence completely, or change it
to: 'For this reason we encourage authors not to specify color
combinations as far as possible.  See also number 1 of sufficient
techniques.'

Sufficient techniques number 1 - Remove what is currently there and
replace with:

Techniques to ensure foreground and background colors can be selected
by the user, most beneficial first:

Bullet point one.  Using a technology that has commonly-available user
agents that can change the foreground and background of complete page
sections (General, future link)

Bullet point two.  Specifying foreground and background colors of
banners, features and navigation in CSS while not specifying
foreground and background colors of the main content of the page in
CSS and/or HTML (future link).  This allows essential additional
visual clues to be maintained. OR

Bullet point three.  Providing a multi color selection tool on the
page for foreground and background colors (JavaScript, Future Link) OR

Bullet point four. Not specifying foreground and background colors in
CSS and/or HTML (future link)'

NB The current bullet point two has been deliberately omitted, for the
reasons given in the Comment box.

Key terms - complete page sections.  Discrete areas of the page, eg
the whole of the main content, the whole of the navigation, the whole
of the banner.

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

Regarding the intent section of 1.4.1, we have removed the sentence,
"For this reason we encourage authors to have as many different color
combinations available as possible."

Note that we have restructured the sufficient techniques section for 1.4.8.

The first sufficient technique listed has been drafted and cast as a
General technique, applicable to both HTML and CSS. The new title is,
"G148: Not specifying background color, not specifying text color, and
not using technology features that change those defaults."

We have removed, "Providing a color selection tool that allows a
pastel background (future link)" as requested.

We have also moved technique G156 (Using a technology that has
commonly-available user agents that can change the foreground and
background of blocks of text) to the top of the list.

We did not include the proposed, "Specifying foreground and background
colors of banners, features and navigation in CSS while not specifying
foreground and background colors of the main content of the page in
CSS and/or HTML (future link)" in 1.4.8. We felt that it could not be
listed as a sufficient technique because, if we are understanding it
correctly, it would make it difficult for users who need to change the
foreground and background colors for the entire page to do so.

Finally, because WCAG 2.0 only defines terms used in the success
criteria, we did not add your proposed definition for "complete page
sections."

Received on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 00:21:36 UTC