Invitation to test the Silver prototypes

Many of you on this list don't have the time to participate in Silver 
regularly, but may have an hour to contribute here-and-there.  This 
invitation is for you.

TL;DR  (Summary)

Silver team wants help testing and improving two prototypes before we 
send them out to the wider world for comments and testing.  It involves 
sketching out new Guidelines or translating existing WCAG guidance 
following the templates and examples we provide.  Pick one prototype to 
test, whichever appeals to you. We want to know the problems you 
encounter, suggestions for improvement, or compliments in trying to 
follow the templates.  We aren't writing content for Silver yet, so 
don't worry about the writing.  It's the process of writing that we want 
to test.  It should take about an hour, although some people may choose 
to take on harder challenges (1.3.1, I'm looking at you).

Email your work to public-silver@w3.org, or if you wish to send it 
privately, you can email it to jspellman@paciellogroup.com and 
lauriat@google.com. All contributions will be public, but we can remove 
your name if you wish.

== Introducing the Prototypes ==

The Silver Design Sprint resulted in recommendations for the design of 
Silver.  Silver Community Group has created two prototypes that are 
ready for wider testing. Think of them as alpha stage prototypes where 
we are looking for input on the basics of the prototypes.  These are not 
ready for broad input, so please don't share them on social media yet.  
We do have a plan for receiving broad input, but one of the prototypes 
can't handle the bandwidth of many testers yet.

We are currently testing:

  * the proposed structure of Silver (Information Architecture) prototype
  * the use of a style guide to write Silver in plain language

Note: Any content that is proposed in this test is not intended to go 
into Silver.  We are not writing content yet.
Note: We have additional prototypes under development that are not yet 
ready for review, most notably, the Conformance prototype.

Pick one:

  * You can use an existing WCAG success criterion or combination of
    related success criteria for either the Information Architecture or
    Plain Language test.  We expect most people to choose this.
  * Brave souls could stress test the Information Architecture by
    tackling breaking up WCAG 1.3.1 or including pointer events in
    keyboard navigation.  :)
  * You could sketch out tests, Methods and Guideline for a user need
    that is not included in WCAG to test the Information Architecture
    prototype.
  * You could sketch out Methods for a user agent (browser or assistive
    technology) or authoring tool to test the Information Architecture
  * If you are expert or passionate about plain language, use our Style
    Guide to translate existing WCAG guidance in plain language.

Choose whichever prototype appeals to you.  Please copy the template for 
the prototype and fill it out using whatever text editing tool (Word, 
HTML, Github PR, Google Doc, email) -- whatever works for you. Email it 
to public-silver@w3.org.  If you wish to send it privately, you can 
email it to jspellman@paciellogroup.com and lauriat@google.com. All 
contributions will be public, but we can remove your name if you wish.  
Details on each of the prototypes are after this paragraph.

== Information Architecture ==
We hope this new structure will provide the ability to better include 
user needs that could not be included in WCAG 2.1, like the proposals 
from the Cognitive Accessibility Task Force and the Low Vision 
Accessibility Task Force.  We also want to include guidance that goes 
beyond traditional Web Content, such as guidance for mobile apps, 
emerging technologies, authoring tools and environments, browsers and 
user agents, and assistive technology. Keep this in mind as you are 
testing and let us know your feedback.

We are proposing flattening the WCAG 2.x architecture from Principles, 
Guidelines, Success Criteria, and Techniques to simply Guidelines and 
Methods.  Most WCAG 2.x success criteria will become Guidelines.  The 
technology-specific success criteria (like most of Robust) will become 
Methods.  Techniques will all be Methods. Some success criteria can be 
merged -- for example, the success criteria that are essentially the 
same advice, but with different measurement levels for A, AA, and AAA, 
or Language of Parts and Language of Page could potentially be merged. 
They would have different Methods for achieving the result, but the 
Guideline could be to identify the language (English, French, Japanese, 
Chinese, ...)  being used.

We don't want you to focus on the details of the writing, we are more 
interested in you sketching out an accessibility guideline to test the 
structure of Silver guidance.  The working Information Architecture 
prototype deliberately has placeholder language, because we want you to 
look at the structure, not the content. We would like you to try writing 
Tests, Methods, and Guideline for an existing WCAG success criteria, or 
for a new idea for a guideline. We created an example and a template 
that you can use to write new Methods and Guidelines for Silver.  Please 
note that not everything that people write for this test will 
necessarily go into Silver.  We are testing the structure, we are not 
writing new content for Silver.  You can sketch out your ideas.  You 
will see in the example that we sketched out Methods for technology that 
we were not familiar with, just to test whether the Silver Information 
Architecture could work.

Our process in creating the example was to sketch out the tests, then 
derive the Methods from the tests.  After sketching out all the Methods 
we could think of (including one that we wished was supported), then we 
wrote the Guideline.  When you write the tests first, you better define 
the edge cases.  That should make the Guideline more accurate and easier 
to test.  You can link to existing WCAG techniques if you want to reuse 
their tests.

We want examples of tests that are not just the true/false success 
criteria of WCAG, but are tests that are rubrics, scales, task-based 
assessment, distance from mean, or others.  We know there are 
researchers who have worked on a variety of tests for accessibility that 
go beyond true/false statement, but we need people to actually write 
some examples.

Links:

  * Working Information Architecture Prototype
    <https://mikecrabb.github.io/silver_taggingSystemDemo/guidelines.html>  
    (limited bandwidth, the response time may be long).
  * Template for Information Architecture
    <https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRgf85Z_NJ7HmF-UX992wLx0F-sCQyipL6USL9HTmvBOWtH53C78SVNjKI8kLTxl5UuYJbc7ImiGsB_/pub>
    Copy it into your text editor of choice, fill it out and send it to
    public-silver@w3.org
  * Example for Information Architecture
    <https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQTeTyH3FQZ-qkt-UsyoePHV_joN_nDJy5CsMvit4GjKnbw9zsZljvGG-kU2ZTRP6bUEVJmdIWGc_PX/pub>
    - It is titled "Methods Prototype for Language of Page".  It uses
    the WCAG 2.1 success criteria of 3.1.1 Language of Page.  Note that
    the Guideline was changed to reflect a broader scope than a web "page".


== Plain Language ==
The Plain Language prototype examines how we can include supporting 
information that is helpful and easy to understand.  Think of it as the 
WCAG Understanding document, except this will be included in the main 
version of Silver.  It will eventually fit into the Information 
Architecture prototype as the "Long Description".  We have put the 
Guideline information in a tab format so it is easier to find the 
information.  Those who are interested in the usability of Silver should 
try to write guidance following the Style Guide.  We have a template for 
you to copy and use.   We are really testing the Style Guide, but we are 
also interested in your feedback about the organization of the 
information including the labels of the tabs. The template only covers 
the first tab.  If you would like to include writing for the other tabs, 
that would be very welcome, but we are only asking for the Get Started tab.

Links:

  * Working Plain Language Prototype
    <https://w3c.github.io/silver/prototypes/PlainLanguage2/>   Select
    the Section Headings link to see an example sketched out.
  * Template for Plain Language
    <https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQVTxM2r00NtcYhZJY6lN6xh_fuM9L2jnPZQJ2c59KiyA_-BcC2HkhKf0IxDod4qBunvPkXbhkCHuKq/pub> 
    Copy it into your text editor of choice, fill it out and send it to
    public-silver@w3.org
  * Example of Plain Language prototype
    <https://w3c.github.io/silver/prototypes/PlainLanguage2/SectionHeading.html>
    - Sections Headings
  * Style Guide for Plain Language
    <https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTNEIRmC8KjpYMk4APRTZIVl3AJj7XY7XiG0bDiQM4oLJueOFrpJUjbNY7fj9R41KLwjtBi8irIWclB/pub> 
    We want your comments and suggestions on the Style Guide