Re: What if Silver didn't have levels?

> WebAIM found that 97% of the million most popular websites on the web
have Level A and AA fails.

So, in other words, 3% met our current definition of conformant, which,
when expressed as a percentile equals "100%" WCAG 2.0 conformance, which
according to Léonie should also be a score we consider equal to useable.

But of the remaining 97% of those sites, how many are truly horrible? How
many are bad, or fair, or not too bad? If one site of those 97% failed due
to a color contrast issue (alone), then I suspect that the offending site
would remain a functional 100% usable for screen reader users, but would
still end up on Jared's fail list, and would still  be failing some users.

I will continue  to suggest then that usable cannot equal 100%, because
Jared has proven beyond debate that in a pass/fail world, most sites fail.

I wonder aloud then, of that 97% collection of sites evaluated and deemed
"failures", how many were usable, even if not fully conformant? How many
were, in aggregate, mighty well done, except for maybe 2 missing alt texts
(from 500 images in total) and had poor focus indication in the footer
(alone)? If usable isn't the same as perfect (100%), then what should
usable equal? Or, if "flawed but usable" = 100%, then what does perfect
equal? 150%? (something of an oxymoron)

There isn't a tonne of light between Léonie and I in our goals, I simply
would like to see a realist number, something less than perfect, be a
minimal score, below which we all can collectively agree "not good enough".

But at the same time regretably, sometimes "good enough" (or "Good enough
for government work" as a good friend often says <grin>) has to be an
answer; that in a real and flawed world we must accept a little water with
our wine, because the alternative is a list of 1 million sites that,
according to our current conformance model, suggests 97% aren't
"accessible", even though for many users - including many users with
differing disabilities - they'll still likely find quite usable, even while
still potentially looking up and saying, "Really good, but..."

(I'll also suggest that "useable" as a means of measurement is subjective,
which also concerns me...)

JF

(Sent from my mobile, apologies for any spelling mistakes)

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 5:14 PM Chuck Adams <charles.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

> I will take a crack at an explanation, though hopefully it doesn't trample
> on Matt's posts or points.
>
> W3C (us) created a standard system.  WCAG 2.0.  Was it defect free?  Did
> it cover all user needs of every ability?  No.  As you mention, it has
> failures (you mention one, but there are other defects which have been
> acknowledged).
>
> AGWG (us) worked on and released WCAG 2.1.  It also wasn't defect free,
> and it also didn't cover all user needs of every ability.
>
> We are working on WCAG 2.2.  I posit that it won't be defect free, and it
> won't cover all user needs of every ability.
>
> Silver will hopefully be a paradigm shift.  We will hopefully learn and
> apply lessons from the past (possibly even the one you mention).  We are
> discussing that it can scale, and that it can be extensible, and that we
> can update it as it evolves.  This indicates to me that we anticipate it
> will not be defect free and that it will not offer all the guidance needed
> to cover all users of every ability.  Anticipating this, we are trying to
> make it updatable and extensible.  I don't expect our first release of
> Silver to be the last set of guidance ever needed, and that it will address
> everyone's needs.
>
> If we can craft a sets of guidance that will be defect free and will cover
> all user needs of every ability, then I concede that we can make the same
> demands of software.  If we aren't able to craft such guidance, then I
> believe that we ought not make higher demands from complex software.
>
> Regards,
> Chuck
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Léonie Watson <lwatson@tetralogical.com>
> Sent: Monday, October 21, 2019 2:27 PM
> To: Matt King <a11ythinker@gmail.com>; Thomas Logan <thomas@equalentry.com>;
> John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
> Cc: Shawn Lauriat <lauriat@google.com>; Detlev Fischer <
> detlev.fischer@testkreis.de>; Abma, J.D. (Jake) <Jake.Abma@ing.com>;
> public-silver@w3.org
> Subject: Re: What if Silver didn't have levels?
>
> On 21/10/2019 17:09, Matt King wrote:
> Matt wrote:
> >[...]
>
> > On the other hand, I am pretty certain hat a standards system that
> > does not enable people to draw lines through the gray is certain to fail.
>
> Can you explain why?
>
> We have substantial evidence that confirms the level approach has failed.
> We know nobody bothers with Level AAA (not even people committed to
> accessibility really), and WebAIM found that 97% of the million most
> popular websites on the web have Level A and AA fails.
>
> --
> Director @TetraLogical
>
>