Re: Costs of testing with Silver

I'd love to make "reduce the cost of accessibility testing" a goal. That
said, is there already a way that "cost of accessibility testing" has been
calculated for WCAG 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1?

If it's not something that already exists, I don't know that we'd want to
have it be a primary goal. As it is, there will already be a cost
associated with adjusting to Silver.

I think we might be able to lower the overall cost of accessibility by
making it more a part of everyone's job. And I think we can do that by
making the guidelines more accessible.

luis

On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 7:55 AM Jeanne Spellman <
jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com> wrote:

> This is a very interesting idea that I do think we need to discuss.  When
> I was first thinking about Silver two years ago, I had a thought that we
> could do automated testing for a basic level of accessibility.  As we went
> through all the research and started forming the ideas and proposals, I had
> forgotten about it.  I am open to looking at this in more detail.
>
> My concern would be the amount of disability needs that could be included
> in reduced-cost testing, particularly the non-physical needs, like
> cognitive disabilities.  I know there is new research and testing in the
> last couple years that could be a viable solution.
>
> I would like to schedule this discussion so we could have a number of
> people involved who care about this issue, and devote an entire meeting (or
> more) to it.
>
> On 8/28/2018 6:19 AM, Wilco Fiers wrote:
>
> Hey all,
>
> Firstly, all hats off. Sharing a personal view here. I wanted to reach out
> about a thing that I've been concerned with regarding Silver. With WCAG 2.1
> I saw some discussions about the increased cost of testing compared to WCAG
> 2.0. Thinking about the adoption of WCAG 2.0 from WCAG 1.0, there too I saw
> that the amount of work it took to do accessibility testing had increased
> quite significantly.
>
> I'm concerned that (as far as I can tell) there hasn't yet been a
> discussion about costs of testing with Silver. I know its still early days,
> but I think that we should have that discussion, and decide what kind of
> target we'd like to hit for Silver. There are all these fantastic ideas
> floating around, about score cards, usability testing, expanding to include
> non-web technologies. Lots of great stuff, but we have to be aware that all
> of these things are going to have a price tag.
>
> I would very much like for the Silver group to decide how much they think
> the cost of doing accessibility testing is allowed to increase. Is it okay
> for the costs of testing to double between WCAG 2.0 and Silver like they
> did from WCAG 1.0 to 2.0? Is it allowed to increase at all? Should Silver
> be designed to decrease costs instead?
>
> Making Silver easier to use, lowering the barrier to entry, those are
> fantastic goals. But those things really don't matter if someone can't get
> the budget to do accessibility testing. And without testing, you can't
> maintain an accessible site. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that
> if Silver decreases the cost of accessibility testing, it could get wider
> adoption than WCAG 2 did. Where is if the opposite happens, if testing for
> Silver is far more expansive than it is for WCAG 2, that organisations
> might just stick with WCAG 2 for a long time to come.
>
> Personally, I'm of the opinion that WCAG 2 is already too expansive. When
> I was still testing WCAG 1, I'd regularly test websites of smaller
> organisations. Those organisations stopped coming when the costs went up
> for WCAG 2. I think a good target for Silver would be that at the bronze
> level, costs for testing are about half what they are for WCAG 2.0 Level
> AA. I believe that that would make it affordable again for small
> businesses, which I think should be a goal for Silver.
>
> Either way, Silver needs to be designed with an eye on testing costs, and
> it would help if we had some goals defined for it.
>
> --
> *Wilco Fiers*
> Senior Accessibility Engineer - Co-facilitator WCAG-ACT - Chair Auto-WCAG
>
>
>