Re: Fwd from Brian Hardy: Your comments on WCAG 2.0 Last Call Working Draft of December, 2007

On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 5:17 PM, Brian Hardy
<Brian.Hardy@visionaustralia.org> wrote:

>   I remain very concerned about your response to Comment 4: Conformance
>
>  Level wrong for SC 1.4.3
>   I understand that it is possible for knowledgeable and skilled users to
>   overcome this problem using operating system or User Agent
>
>  'highlighting' or 'contrast' tools/features to create high contrast
>   text, but this is an unnecessary and unreasonable burden to place only
>   on users with disabilities.
>
>   In the world of access to physical buildings, under Australian law, it
>   is not acceptable in a new building to have the wheel chair access via
>   the rear loading bay, down a smelly back alley, just because the
>   architect thinks ramps look ugly. Access has to be through the front
>   door (or near by).
>
>   This principle of disability access not requiring special effort by the
>   user (unless it is impossible or unreasonably expensive) should apply in
>   the web. It is easy (and good usability practice) to make websites with
>   reasonable contrast. As the Web Accessibility Initiative we should be
>   saying this clearly by setting the success criteria at level A, not
>   Level AA.
>
>   In the built environment, sufficient contrast between say walls and
>   floors is a requirement, with the same status as other access
>   requirements. Users with moderate vision impairment need this to move
>   around safely. They could overcome designs with poor contrast by always
>   having to use a cane, but this is seen as an unnecessary burden when it
>   is possible and easy to maintain good contrast in the built environment.
>   I believe these same arguments apply on the web. Good contrast on web
>   pages is easy to do and highly beneficial, so the SC should be at level
>   A Conformance.

In general, success criteria are at Level A if there were no
workarounds or alternate renderings that could be provided by
assistive technology unless the author satisfied the success
criterion. Success criteria are at Level AA when they impose some
limitations on the look and feel of a web site to improve the
accessibility of the default rendering.

Authors are encouraged to satisfy as many success criteria as
possible: "Although conformance can only be achieved at the stated
levels, authors are encouraged to satisfy and report progress toward
meeting Success Criteria from all levels beyond the achieved level of
conformance."

Some users may need to use assistive technology with content that only
conforms at Level A when they would not with content that conforms at
Level AA. Similarly  for content that satisfies Level AA but not Level
AAA. Some users will need to use assistive technology to access
content, no matter what level of conformance is satisfied.

Received on Friday, 21 March 2008 23:29:09 UTC