RE: Comment on use of the word "essential" in exception for 1.4.11

I found the original comment & changes that lead to the exception:
https://github.com/w3c/wcag21/pull/100#issuecomment-278316544


To summarise, it wasn’t photos of real life (so not the sensory exception), but medical diagrams, and I think topographical maps would figure under this as well. Anything which is created rather than captured, but by necessity has graduations/gradients which cannot have the sharp-edges needed for contrast.

I think with Glenda & Laura’s update it is separated the exception from the first use of the term ‘essential’, so I hope we can proceed with that version.

I suppose you could argue that the sensory exception could fit under the essential one, if you’d rather shrink it in that way?

-Alastair


From: Repsher, Stephen J [mailto:stephen.j.repsher@boeing.com]
Sent: 21 September 2017 00:37
To: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>; Glenda Sims <glenda.sims@deque.com>; public-low-vision-a11y-tf <public-low-vision-a11y-tf@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Comment on use of the word "essential" in exception for 1.4.11

Yep, I get the difference between the 2 uses, but I think the exception should call out those types of things rather than create an “essential” umbrella.  Photos and colors of real life is an obvious example (which I thought was the point of the sensory exception – if not, seems easy to incorporate).

Steve

From: Alastair Campbell [mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 6:25 PM
To: Repsher, Stephen J <stephen.j.repsher@boeing.com<mailto:stephen.j.repsher@boeing.com>>; Glenda Sims <glenda.sims@deque.com<mailto:glenda.sims@deque.com>>; public-low-vision-a11y-tf <public-low-vision-a11y-tf@w3.org<mailto:public-low-vision-a11y-tf@w3.org>>
Subject: RE: Comment on use of the word "essential" in exception for 1.4.11

Hi Stephen,

If it helps separate the first use of “essential” from the second, the phrase “graphical objects that are essential for understanding” is intended to separate parts of graphics that are needed to discern the meaning, from those which are not.

Without that concept (however it is phrased), the SC becomes impossible to meet and very difficult to test.

The comment that lead to the last exception was regarding graphics used in learning material (and exams) for doctors, where pictures of people’s, um, insides are the way they have to be in life, you can’t just up the contrast on them.

That doesn’t seem to fit the ‘sensory’ exception, but does seem to need some way of being exempted.

Cheers,

-Alastair