Re: Costs of testing with Silver

Hello all,

This is the first time I've responded to a thread but, boy, was this a
whopper of a discussion! I like the idea of a tiered system of conformance,
as this hierarchy is something I have seen used across multiple
organizations. I'm used to a hierarchy based on level of access: blockers
(one or more PwD would be blocked from digital content), poor ease of use
(not blocked, but it is difficult, takes longer, and/or is confusing), and
enhancements/usability. I like the added layer of including certain
functions being required of a user agent vs. the development.

On Thu, Sep 6, 2018 at 1:03 PM Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
>
>
> I think we would struggle to put together a document that provides well
> defined levels for types of organisation, or even size of project. Many
> project are updates to an existing web-estate, so lots of small project
> could then avoid requirements.
>
>
>
> I’ll try and be solution focused, and suggest that:
>
>
>
>    - We lead with the user-requirements as ‘guidelines’ (as I suggested
>    previously), with general and per-technology specific criteria underneath
>    that guideline.
>
>    - Each guideline could have levels, like A/AA/AAA, except that it cuts
>    the criteria into levels instead of the guideline. E.g. WCAG 1.3.1 for HTML
>    could be split into:
>       - *Guideline*: The design is represented with appropriate structure
>       and metadata.
>       - *HTML Gold*: Every element uses the right tag/attributes, and are
>       appropriately nested (manual test).
>       - *HTML Silver*: Headings and lists are used and correctly nested,
>       labels and for/ID relationships are valid.
>       - *HTML Tool Bronze*: The CMS provides a headings feature for
>       content authors, and warns about full lines of bold text.
>       - *HTML bronze*: Headings and lists are used (with some pre-defined
>       auto-wcag style tests)
>       (A quick, off-the-top-of-my-head example.)
>
>       - The requirement is not split between levels, but the amount of
>    effort needed to achieve it might be.
>
>    - Some requirements are weighted more towards user-agents and
>    authoring tools. If Wix/Squarespace/Wordpress et al provided options for
>    (more) accessible output, smaller organisations would have less testing to
>    do.
>
>    - One for John: At bronze the requirement for focus styles could be
>    placed on the user-agent, but for silver/gold the requirement could be for
>    the site.
>
>    - There could be a ‘slice’ of the criteria that are aimed at sites
>    using a good tool provider, reducing the testing ‘surface area’.
>    NB: The tool provider would need to say that they fulfil the other
>    requirements, so it becomes a marketing & procurement issue rather than a
>    site development issue.
>
>    - I take John’s point that we have little or no leverage with the
>    user-agents, but if we lead with the user-requirement, and provide
>    ‘techniques’/  methods across websites/UA/authoring tools, it will make it
>    much clearer where the effort needs to be applied!
>
>    - If we go down the route of levels for organisation capability, then
>    it should be tied to other activities they are doing. For example,
>    usability testing could be a valid method if the organisation already runs
>    such testing in general, and that puts them above the small scale. This
>    supports my recurring point that some things should be process-based rather
>    than content based.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> -Alastair
>
>
>