Re: Invitation to test the Silver prototypes

I believe the exercise I believe is to migrate 2.0 success criteria to
plain language guidelines in 2.1 using the style guide.  I think it's a
great idea to d "hard work" to make the SCs more understandable and
consolidated in the next version. I have a couple of questions about the
prototypes, perhaps for cyborg or another plain language specialist?

   - Are the guidelines intended to be "measurable" statements that can be
   evaluated as pass/fail (or % graded)? In other words, are they the unit of
   measurement used to judge conformance.
   - In the active voice there is a subject who is acting. In this style
   guide case it would be the reader (identified as "you"). How do we know
   that the person reading the document will be doing the work? Is it possible
   to have plain language without an actor in the sentence, where the subject
   is the content?

Cheers,

David MacDonald



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On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 2:50 PM Jeanne Spellman <
jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>