POUR Principles in Silver

A question I have, which was raised by reading both the Plain Language and
Information Architecture prototypes, is what role (if any) is intended for
the WCAG principles in Silver?

The principles are removed from the information architecture and apart from
the occasional mention of “understand” in the “Why?” section of the Plain
Language prototype, make no explicit appearance there either.

Not using the POUR principles to organise and structure the Silver
information architecture makes perfect sense, but possibly dispensing with
them entirely seems worth debating at least, which is my reason for writing..

The principles don’t need to be the framework around which to organise the
Silver guidelines and success criteria, but they can still be the
foundation upon which each guideline and success criteria is understood and
explained.

This would require two things:

 1. An explanation of the principles (or an updated variation of them) as a
preamble to Silver (much as exists now in WCAG).

2. Explanations in the “Why?” section of the plain language prototype which
explicitly used the language (and ideas) of the principles to explain the
reasons for a particular guideline or success criteria. (Most guidelines
can be usefully understood as embodying at least 2, sometimes all 4, of the
current principles.)

Keeping hold of the principles and using them in this way would have a
number of advantages:

·       Understanding the core principles underlying ALL the guidelines
helps a deeper understanding of the individual guidelines themselves

·       It enables and encourages developers and designers to think
creatively and  innovatively, rather than just adopting a checklist
mentality.

·       It helps provide an important sense of continuity from WCAG

·       While specific guidelines and success criteria will,
understandably, change over time, the principles will continue to hold true..

Dispensing with the principles (if that is what is intended) may be a case
of throwing the baby out with the bath water. I would be really interested
to hear what others think.

Mark Tanner