Re: Requirements for external text alternatives for audio/video

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 2:25 AM, Matt May <mattmay@adobe.com> wrote:
> On Mar 24, 2010, at 11:29 PM, Silvia Pfeiffer wrote:
>> 1) WCAG needs to be extended to include requirements that are similar
>> to the requirements that other devices face. Maybe this could be added
>> as a Level AAAA to WCAG2.0 (though, honestly, I would prefer a less
>> repetitive and convoluted document than WCAG2.0 that deals
>> specifically with media accessibility requirements).
>
> Two responses:
>
> a) I think rather than revisiting WCAG and lumping mobile use cases in with it, you're better off asking the Mobile Web Best Practices WG to include accessibility in their document.

I was not talking about mobile use cases at all. When I say "other
devices" I was referring to TV and digital TV in contrast to the
Web/Online. I don't actually care what actual device the Web content
is delivered on - I was talking about accessibility requirements for
Web video in contrast to traditional video. The choice of the word
"device" was maybe not quite lucky - you might want to re-read my
email with that background.


> b) As I'm sure you're aware, WCAG 2.0 does deal with media accessibility requirements, but the kind of technical specification going on here is clearly beyond the scope of WCAG. What is produced here is what WCAG should be pointing to in its techniques.

I was talking about guidelines in WCAG, not about technology
specification. Clearly, this is beyond WCAG.


> c) The idea of a WCAG level AAAA makes me want to run away screaming with my hands over my ears. I have a deep-seated mistrust for people who claim AAA, since they're usually deceiving either themselves or others. I'd hate for anything useful to be buried behind all that.

I agree. :-)

I am actually not fussed about what goes into WCAG - my interest is in
defining technical specifications and this group and the HTML WG is
definitely the right place. I just used WCAG as a guideline for what
technology capabilities should go into HTML5, since clearly WCAG
provides accessibility guidelines for Web content, which includes
media content, and all the online accessibility laws in the world seem
to refer to WCAG.

Right now WCAG does not provide any claims on what features need to be
in captions for video. Plain text without formatting is clearly
acceptable to WCAG on any A level. It seems obvious, though that
caption user groups are unsatisfied with such simple captions, so it
was a great surprise to me that the guidelines did not provide for
such user needs. If the W3C Web video accessibility guidelines do not
require formatting features, well then it is hard to argue that they
should go into the HTML5 technology.

Regards,
Silvia.

Received on Monday, 29 March 2010 22:30:39 UTC