- From: Steve Faulkner <faulkner.steve@gmail.com>
- Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 09:43:00 +0000
- To: Adrian Roselli <Roselli@algonquinstudios.com>
- Cc: Janina Sajka <janina@rednote.net>, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>, HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>, WCAG WG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, "public-comments-wcag20@w3.org" <public-comments-wcag20@w3.org>, Gregg Vanderheiden <gv@trace.wisc.edu>, "kirsten@can-adapt.com" <kirsten@can-adapt.com>
- Message-ID: <CA+ri+Vnp0Pmv_k+uaz986+H3ghR2GsKQEg_1OCn2b_ZVkWWM7g@mail.gmail.com>
Hi Adrian, Thanks for writing the post, I see the Jared Smith from WebAIM has commented, and I consider he has provided some useful feedback that we should consider: Jared Smith <http://webaim.org/>November 26, 2013 at 2:24 AM<http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/image-alt-exception-change-re-re-re.html?showComment=1385450686463#c8964124963439827855> > > First, I'm curious how we got to this point. Why has nobody considered the > implications and harmonization of years-old W3C specifications (two of > which are accessibility-specific) that prescribed techniques that directly > resulted in a WCAG failure until now? That the working group is seemingly > caught off guard and in argument over this is a bit alarming. > > Second, to partially answer that question, it seems that recent updates to > WCAG techniques documents simply reflect the current state of AT support, > rather than best practice and requirements for optimal accessibility. WCAG > is simply becoming a codification of "what works today" versus > "recommendations for making Web content more accessible" (sentence one of > the WCAG 2.0 document). > > This leaves innovators of ARIA, HTML5, and tomorrow's technologies in a > state of confusion regarding WCAG conformance until the working group deems > that we've crossed some nebulous threshold of support and thus modifies > failures to reflect this. But this doesn't happen until AFTER it's widely > in use and, by definition, already supporting accessibility. This means a > site that has zero accessibility issues due to modern (or not so modern) > technology can fail WCAG today, then pass tomorrow based on a > failure/techniques definition change. If WCAG is truly about > recommendations and guidelines, it needs to be more forward looking than > this. > > In short, WCAG is increasingly skating to where the puck is, not to where > it will or should be. > > And this bring me to my third point, the working group needs to at last > determine whether a failure as defined in techniques documents absolutely > results in a failure at the normative WCAG level. I've asked several > working group members this question and received varying responses ranging > from "A page can have many failures, yet still be conformant if it meets > the normative success criteria in other ways." to (as expressed just today > by a former WCAG editor) "FAILUREs are things that are ALWAYs failures." > So, which is it? Until this question is resolved, one cannot know the > implications of modifying (or not) any failure language. > > And finally, regarding the F65 change itself... at this point, it's mostly > irrelevant. My preference would be no or little change. But this is just > one of many places in which ARIA and HTML5 techniques conflict with WCAG > techniques and failures. Modern, dynamic web accessibility, I believe, can > no longer be defined in such simplistic ways - by drawing a > techniques/failures line in the sand, so to speak. End user accessibility > just doesn't work that way. WebAIM's recommendations will not change - > "Make things accessible to your users in the technologies they use, using > HTML first, then ARIA, etc. to enhance and support that accessibility when > necessary." If followed, and if the page meets the normative WCAG success > criteria, whether the page matches increasingly complex and conflated WCAG > techniques and failures doesn't really matter. > -- Regards SteveF HTML 5.1 <http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/> On 25 November 2013 16:22, Adrian Roselli <Roselli@algonquinstudios.com>wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Janina Sajka [mailto:janina@rednote.net] > [...] > > Frankly, I'm unclear why you even took this discussion to Twitter. What > did > > you expect to gain and how are we to understand the value of any results? > > What good does this do? What value does it add? > > I'd like to note that I wrote an overview on my blog yesterday [1] and > also solicited feedback from the community. > > I don't consider this to be random voting, nor do I expect the respondents > have all the context. I also know that my followers (all 2 of them) hold a > similar view as I do, so I don't expect to hear a viewpoint different from > my own. > > I do, however, hope to discover some nuggets (for either viewpoint) that > maybe I had not considered that I can bring back here for discussion. I > don't think lack of membership here precludes having a voice, though I do > see the value in having somebody collecting that information to present > back here. > > And for the record, I am against loosening alt attribute restrictions, as > I was against it the last time it came around for discussion. > > > > 1. > http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/image-alt-exception-change-re-re-re.html > >
Received on Tuesday, 26 November 2013 09:44:10 UTC