Comments on preview of editor's draft of LV user requirements doc

Thanks for the opportunity for early review. Overall, the intent (as in 
the abstract) and the structure (as in the TOC) of the document look 
good and it's good to see progress in this area.

These are quick comments for your TF meeting today, to mention concerns 
about the current draft potentially advancing to a FPWD shortly. I do 
think that they should be addressed before it goes for FPWD review.

In the interests of time I'm making very quick general comments on 
issues that recur multiple places. I'd be happy to give it a more 
detailed review with more time.

Significant concerns -- with just a few examples here -- but there are 
currently many instances of the first two kinds of statements in the 
document. For MAUR, we had to scrub the document several times to avoid 
this kind of phrasing.

1. Categorical statements that should be qualified, for instance:

     "Spacing such as.... impacts readability" Not for all users. More 
accurate to qualify it, for instance: "For some people with low vision, 
spacing such as .... can impact readability"

2. Specific statements that should have sources indicated, for instance:

     "Starting at around age 40, most people have declining vision..." 
This type of statement should have source cited.

3. Consistent scoping: Clarify that this is addressing low vision issues 
that pertain to the web (even if referring to the expanded web, but have 
it in there more clearly as an anchoring concept since there are other 
accessibility considerations, such as built environment, paper, etc, 
that aren't addressed here). Right now it sounds as though some parts of 
the document are aiming to be a comprehensive and authoritative 
statement about what low vision user requirements are in all situations. 
(I have a similar concern where it comes to the low vision resource 
repository mentioned in the introduction.)

4. (more minor) Terminology and international perspective: Where the doc 
is explaining core terminology, it would probably clearer if you talk 
about "the term" low vision, and also note that different terms are 
used, including "partially sighted" (depends on the country). And it 
would be important to clarify that in many cases there are legal 
definitions that set different thresholds in different countries 
(currently in section 2.1 but variation in definition per country or 
jurisdiction not coming through.)

Looking forward to updated drafts and thanks for initial work in this area,

- Judy

-- 
Judy Brewer
Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
32 Vassar St. Room G-526, MIT/CSAIL
Cambridge MA 02149 USA
www.w3.org/WAI/

Received on Wednesday, 3 February 2016 15:21:11 UTC