Minutes of the Silver meeting of 12 July 2019

Formatted minutes <https://www.w3.org/2019/07/12-silver-minutes.html>

Text of minutes:

   [1]W3C

      [1] http://www.w3.org/

                               - DRAFT -

                 Silver Community Group Teleconference

12 Jul 2019

Attendees

   Present
          Lauriat, jeanne, Makoto, JF, Cyborg, AngelaAccessForAll,
          Chuck, Rachael, CharlesHall, shari, KimD, Jan,
          ChrisLoiselle, bruce_bailey, L�onie, johnkirkwood,
          johnkirk_, tink, (L�onie), LuisG

   Regrets
          Shawn, Bruce

   Chair
          Jeanne Spellman

   Scribe
          cybork, cyborg

Contents

     * [2]Topics
         1. [3]Conformance proposals
         2. [4]Leonie ideas
     * [5]Summary of Action Items
     * [6]Summary of Resolutions
     __________________________________________________________

   <tink> Meeting: Silver TF meeting

   <shari> present_

   <LuisG> I would, but I may have to go at a moment's notice for
   baby times

Conformance proposals

   <tink> scribe cybork

   <JF> scribe: cybork

   <Cyborg> scribe: cyborg

   Shawn: Charles, Leonie proposals

   Charles: sent proposal via the list, in response to severity.
   Question was can we change severity to be impact as critical vs
   difficulty of implementation. If so then the baseline point and
   multiplier makes sense, where it is about impact on people vs
   impact on authors, i liked pretty much everything else about
   JF's proposal. a number of people saw bias based on visual,
   auditory, mobility and cognition, but the bias is in the number
   of criteria
   ... number of criteria for each specific need. each SC was
   written for a functional need. if there are fewer ones that
   cover mobility, that is the bias, rather than in the points per
   criteria. so resolving bias by number of guidelines, not which
   need it maps to.

   JF: Charles, i think we're getting close, criticality and
   complexity, impact on users, we need to think about that as one
   of metrics, when we think about points calculation, we should
   be looking at impact on author as well. easy things to do don't
   get you a lot of points, hard things to do get you a lot of
   points.
   ... language of the page, in terms of ease of implementation,
   providing you a good audio description for video, effort is
   higher. we need to recognize effort on contributor as well as
   impact on user. separate, complementary, discrete

   Charles: level of effort is not actual level of effort, can buy
   a template that has that solution already in it, can meet the
   need without extra work. level of effort isn't fair gauge of
   how accessible it is

   JF: audio description harder than language of page

   Charles: so is the impact on people, more critical to people

   <shari> - shari, he just answered

   Shawn: quick point, one thing we wanted to have in Silver is
   ability to pass tests and meet guidance, without using method
   described.
   ... in google docs, can set alt text on images, but amount of
   work to make that accessible, was higher than alt attribute on
   image. was customized. difficulty is not known when assigning
   points.

   <LuisG> I can scribe you

   <LuisG> Cyborg: In dealing with the second issue about ease of
   implementation, I agree with John

   <LuisG> .. it should be kept separate. I think of it in terms
   of social return on investment

   <LuisG> .. how do I get my biggest bang for my buck

   <LuisG> .. that's why I split it by reach and impact for the
   user and investment more focused on the organization

   <LuisG> .. my 2x2 matrix talked about ease of implementation
   through lens of both how many people hours to implement and
   will it require a certain level of expertise to implement it?

   <CharlesHall> link to Cyborg proposal doc?

   <LuisG> .. I was looking at what we measure, not the points
   attributed because I still feel we need to make sure our X and
   Y axis are correct before assigning points

   <LuisG> .. separating things can be helpful

   Leonie: hard to do ease of implementation, how do we count it?
   can be complex to create a system that counts the effort of a
   person with their blog vs a highly complex task

   <CharlesHall> +1 to level of effor being immeasurable

   JF: not necessarily saying ease of implementation is toward
   final score, as we think about establishing baseline score, one
   of the things we think about with baseline score is effort. we
   are going towards gamification. instead of pass fail, if you do
   more, your score will increase.
   ... with cognitive disabilities, less about tech wiring, more
   about wholistic approach, cognitive walkthroughs, task
   completion, those kinds of activities are significant
   investment of human and cash resources
   ... when we look at scoring matrix, scoring mechanism should
   reward that investment as well. if you want to go from Bronze
   to Silver, maybe this is the time to do cognitive walkthroughs,
   ranking mechanism means greater investment means greater return
   ... one of the things we can consider as we develop baseline
   point, that the effort of purchasing template is low effort,
   but cognitive walkthrough is worth it if you get more points,
   higher order tests more worth it.
   ... return on investment is more significant, but inserting
   effort in calculation change

   Shawn: assuming points would be awarded at test or guideline
   level, maybe more at test level, so different methods can be
   used to pass a different test. but the different methods will
   involve different effort. we do have same goal, if you put in
   more investment to do more things, you should get more points.
   measurability of effort and complexity and maintainability of
   that. some things 10 years ago were hard and now are easy.
   ... we need a maintenance model to adjust score as things get
   easier.

   <LuisG> of course

   <LuisG> Cyborg: I have a point of agreement with JF

   <LuisG> .. and with what Shawn said. If the goal is to
   encourage not only things that are hard or time consuming, but
   also raise the bar in terms of broader accessibility and a
   deeper understanding

   <LuisG> .. the stepped levels match the sloped version of
   Bronze, Silver, Gold...if we're making those leaps, that's the
   concern I have about the gradient

   <LuisG> .. if we're encouraging leaps then we're getting closer
   to agreement

   <LuisG> .. as for maintainability...how do we do it; how do we
   measure it, we need to grapple with it

   <LuisG> .. in terms of maintenance and what's hard now is easy
   tomorrow, that needs to get worked in as well. we could do that
   through reviews that are done regularly

   <LuisG> .. but yes, I think we're getting closer to talking on
   the same page

   <CharlesHall> it sounds like we only need to be more specific
   in the Silver Requirements where part of the flexibility and
   governance includes adjustments to conformance scoring

   <Zakim> JF, you wanted to respond to Shawn

   JF: effort level in my model is a multiplyer, gave 3 levels of
   effort - easy, medium, high - low level is 1, medium is 2, high
   is 3. the more you invest, the more you get back, create a
   system where that is what will happen. larger jumps of points

   Cyborg speaking here - we are talking an alternative points
   economy, as incentive for accessibility change

   <Zakim> jeanne, you wanted to include emerging tech

   Jeanne: we also need to think about emerging tech in points
   system and therefore level of effort being part of method, is
   the right place to have it

   Leonie: same as Jeanne, JF is asking if requirement A is more
   than B, but if we are talking about how much effort into A vs
   B, at the method level, that is worth it

Leonie ideas

   Cyborg speaking here - wanting to separate investment from user
   need, to measure tehm separately vs multiplyer

   Leonie: proposal question re: prioritizing requirements based
   on number of users, because it would create competition,
   thought that is not a good way to go. but after talking to
   John, walked through idea was to start with start with all
   requirements as being even, not one more or less important as
   other
   ... start on flat line, number of user groups benefiting is a
   multiplyer, many of the SC are written on assumption is that it
   benefits 1 group, but we know for e.g. that alt text is used by
   many categories of PWD, including cognitive disabilities
   ... number of groups vs number of users

   <Lauriat> +1 to JF's q comment

   <CharlesHall> +1 to number of groups, but I still prefer that
   to be described by the functional need and not the group

   Leonie: that seemed to work until a requirement only benefited
   one group - e.g. content from flashing for seizures, cognitive
   disabilities. if user group numbers is multiplyer, that would
   have a lower multiplyer number. e.g. headings might benefit
   more user groups.
   ... one possibility is multiplication numbers, or criticality,
   important vs necessary
   ... to get over hump of flashing content, could add another
   level
   ... JF and i were talking through user needs in this way, so in
   this context, user group is type of disability vs user need

   <LuisG> of course

   <LuisG> Cyborg: I wanted to address the issue of criticality
   and user group numbers

   <LuisG> .. starting with criticality, could we prioritize by
   it? there's an ongoing bias which is why I'm here. One of my
   concerns was hearing from members of 2.1 was that needs of
   blind people were considered more than those of users with
   cognitive disabilities

   <LuisG> .. because blind people couldn't do anything at all,
   but with cognitive was more like "it was more difficult, but
   they could still do it"

   <LuisG> .. and some people with cognitive disabilities
   encounter barriers that get categorized in that way

   <LuisG> .. and what you have in the population of people with
   cognitive disabilities is higher rates of unemployment, higher
   suicide rates, etc. because it's so much harder because it's
   not made for them

   <LuisG> .. it's not fair to have a competition, but if those
   kinds of things come to human rights tribunals, the bar is set
   as "undue hardship" and there have been more and more based on
   people with cognitive disabilities being told "you can still do
   it, it's just harder"

   <LuisG> .. so for criticality, Jeanne Luis and I tried to
   eliminate that descrimination to those less likely to provoke
   that

   <LuisG> .. but we could only slice that up as "will that cause
   a barrier" or "is it more on the functionality of the
   technology rather than the need"

   <LuisG> .. among user needs we're not able to come to any
   conclusion that weren't encouraging descrimination

   <LuisG> .. it's about less transparency with the bias because
   you buried it in math

   <AngelaAccessForAll> +1 to Cybele's comments

   <KimD> +1 to Cybele's comments also

   <LuisG> Cyborg: we wondered if we could define it from the user
   perspective. it's hard to find consensus even within a user
   group and find people that have the self knowledge about
   whether something is easier or harder

   <LuisG> .. to be able to do that assessment to fairly represent
   their user needs...is that really by group? what if they have
   intersectional needs? what if it's just harder for them because
   it's harder for them?

   <LuisG> tink: we have people used to doing the research,
   analyzing the data, etc.

   <LuisG> .. if WCAG isn't representing a user group enough, we
   should listen to people in that user group now

   <LuisG> Shawn: let's go ahead and move on...we will need to
   talk through these things, but we want an overview of the
   proposals we have so far

   <Zakim> JF, you wanted to suggest user needs versus user groups

   <LuisG> JF: I take offense to something Cyborg said because I
   personally spent hundreds of hours trying to get cognitives
   guidelines into 2.1

   <LuisG> .. to say that somehow we're ignoring needs of people
   with cognitives disabilities offensive and inaccurate

   <LuisG> .. many people on this call are extremely mindful that
   up until now we've not done a good job meeting the needs of
   people with cognitive disabilities, but the reality is that
   it's a hard group of users to address

   <LuisG> .. I agree that "user groups" isn't the best way of
   saying it...maybe something more like "functional requirements"
   or "user needs"

   <LuisG> .. as you think them through, one of the examples was
   headings. and right now in WCAG, we're asking for heading usage
   and we're asking for a hierarchical order

   <LuisG> .. so what we can look at is "if you get the hierarchy
   right, you get more points"

   <LuisG> .. and it could also help people with cognitive
   disabilities, so you get another multiplier there

   <LuisG> .. trying to think through user needs and using them as
   multipliers, we can think of wider range of needs people with
   cognitive disabilities have

   <Zakim> jeanne, you wanted to ask how to decide what
   constitutes a group?

   <CharlesHall> I love internet points

   <LuisG> jeanne: a quick insight we had when working on heading
   was that headings that are formatted like headings. there's a
   visual hierachy would have been an easy thing to include in
   WCAG 2.0. that would have benefitied users with cognitive
   disabilities

   Jeanne: insight on headings, there is a visual hierarchy would
   have been an easy thing in 2.0, would have benefited people
   with cognitive disabilities, but wasn't done

   <LuisG> .. what we have is semantic headings in WCAG for screen
   reader users

   <LuisG> .. we realized it was something that could have been
   done, but wasn't...but I wanted to ask tink if you considered
   how granular the groups would be

   <LuisG> .. and thought on the criticality levels

   <LuisG> tink: no, it was just some ideas. I mentioned at the
   end some of the things we'd want to explore, such as "what are
   users groups" "how many look like they'd be beneficial to
   multiple groups"

   <LuisG> .. I wouldn't get too hung up on my word usage. I think
   we have a number of ways we could look at the criticality
   levels across the people involved, we have representatives from
   various groups

   <LuisG> .. if we went to our contact, we could talk to more,
   but it might be enough to put forth a proposal

   <LuisG> .. and just good old fashioned user research

   <LuisG> .. we can use the skills and knowledge we have to put
   forth a proposal and then user test it

   <LuisG> Shawn: Charles is next

   <LuisG> Charles: what is the appetite for keeping
   non-interference involved with that level of criticality

   <LuisG> .. what is the actual human impact? if it's highest,
   should that negate getting points anywhere?

   <LuisG> .. if my site is 100% conformant, but I have an
   animated component that triggers seizures and I kill someone,
   why would I get any points

   <LuisG> excellent point

   <LuisG> tink: agreed

   <LuisG> Rachael: I have been listening over several calls and
   I've heard us talk about factors like granularity of groups,
   number of groups, ease of use, etc.

   <LuisG> .. I haven't heard us talk about granularity of
   requirements as a factor

   <LuisG> .. and within the current version, we have rules that
   we can't modify existing SCs

   <LuisG> .. I think there is potential without a rule for how we
   add content that things could become unbalanced very quickly

   <LuisG> Shawn: only a few minutes...we have Cyborg and JF in
   the queue

   <Rachael> We have discussed criticality, granularity/number of
   groups, and ease of use. I haven't heard us talk about
   granularity and number of SC as a factor. Regardless of system,
   I think we will need a set of rules to manage adding SC to
   avoid discrimination. Not sure we can just add requirements the
   way we do now.

   <LuisG> Cyborg: I want to draw attention to Charle's comment
   about red lines of potential things that kill your
   accessibility rating

   <LuisG> .. the issue I was trying to get to was the user groups
   types in JF's proposal...and my concern is that cognitive
   disabilities is a larger umbrella

   <JF> I've expanded that initial list out in the spreadsheet

   <JF> it's an idea, not the final list

   <LuisG> .. we haven't even put mental health in there...and
   that makes it even more complicated

   <jeanne> hey, that's a "we" expanded out that list.

   <KimD> +1 to Cybele - it gets extremely complex very quickly

   <LuisG> .. by giving lower points to certain things, we end up
   creating the same problems

   <LuisG> Shawn: we agree granularity is a big topic to look into

   <Zakim> JF, you wanted to address Jeanne's headings comment

   <LuisG> JF: Visual representation would help people with
   cognitive disabilities, but considering purpose of input, we're
   not asking the web authors to do anything different

   <LuisG> .. they're going to design the page how they're going
   to design the page

   <jeanne> except for color contrast, that impacts the design of
   the page

   <LuisG> .. we're making sure the semantics are there so that
   helper apps could step in and fill the gap

   <LuisG> .. if they use the semantics correctly, a user
   stylesheet could help solve the problem

   <LuisG> .. the push back would make it a non-starter to
   requiring visual design stylings for headings

   <LuisG> .. it's not supposed to solve all the problems, but
   facilitate tools to help solve problems

   <LuisG> .. we put not alt text so that all pages can read it
   out loud, but so that screen readers can read it out

   I don't agree with JF about the headings issue - visual
   headings is not a "non-starter"

   that kind of language is part of the problem, imo

   <LuisG> Shawn: so now we need to figure out how to evaluate the
   proposals

   <JF> @cyborg it iwll be a non-starter at design firms

   <LuisG> thanks everyone

   <jeanne> @JF, so was color contrast, but they adapted.

   <JF> level of effort - everythig is a trade-off

   <Lauriat> trackbot, end meeting

Summary of Action Items

Summary of Resolutions

   [End of minutes]