Re: Extra normative level?

JF, what do you think of Alastair's proposal?  If I understand it, the 
proposal consists of providing a plain language explanation followed 
immediately by a testable statement.

Chuck

On 3/10/2020 7:47 AM, John Foliot wrote:
> Hi Jeanne,
>
> All of the plain language examples we've seen to date lack enough 
> specificity to be a normative requirement IMHO.
>
> Take Clear Language.
> The current "Requirement" states: /Use clear language to make it 
> easier for readers to understand. /
>
> Without a clear metric to measure that however, it is a meaningless 
> ask, as nobody will be able to effectively evaluate whether or not the 
> goal has been met: I can claim it's clear and easy to understand, you 
> can claim it's not, and then what?
>
> (I'll note that the current draft example 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LfzTd_8WgTi0IUOOjUCRfRQ7e7__FRcnZow4w7zLlkY/edit*__;Iw!!GqivPVa7Brio!K2X5bRVaQPSOBChUaWfTZIqA2Cb7LcCJtGj5Ctzx4o94FanILkCempgZPntIsVTVrw$> 
> has, as a "requirement" the following: "Remove unnecessary words" - my 
> question is, unnecessary to whom? The end-user with a University 
> degree reading level vocabulary, or the end-user with a Grade 6 
> reading level vocabulary? Would this be "better": "Use clear language 
> - make easier understand" - there, I removed "unnecessary" words... 
> Additionally, that very much feels like an "English" language 
> requirement, but does that apply to all languages? Spanish is 
> significantly more 'compact' than English, with different grammar 
> rules - "rules" that already remove superfluous words, so I will argue 
> against that measurement rule as being too English-centric)
> In the context of the W3C being a place where we create STANDARDS, I 
> will suggest that the "normative" parts are the measurable 
> standardized parts, everything else is backgrounder and explanation 
> and non-normative. Merriam Webster backs me up:
>
>     ***Normative
>     <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/normative__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!K2X5bRVaQPSOBChUaWfTZIqA2Cb7LcCJtGj5Ctzx4o94FanILkCempgZPnt1OmocZA$>*:
>     of, relating to, or determining norms or _standards_
>
>     *Standard*
>     <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/standard__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!K2X5bRVaQPSOBChUaWfTZIqA2Cb7LcCJtGj5Ctzx4o94FanILkCempgZPnvUcIp21w$>:
>     something set up and established by authority as _a rule for the
>     measure of quantity, weight, extent, value, or quality_
>
> I fully appreciate that today there remains a fair bit of subjectivity 
> to our evaluation process (what, exactly, is appropriate alt text?), 
> but it seems to me we should be trying to squeeze out the 
> subjectivity, not add to it. A vaguely worded, hard-to-measure 
> "normative" requirement is, frankly, an oxymoron IMHO.
>
>
> JF
>
> On Mon, Mar 9, 2020 at 5:48 PM Jeanne Spellman 
> <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com 
> <mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>> wrote:
>
>     It could also be the guideline itself.  It's clear and it wouldn't
>     take much to make it plain language.
>
>
>     On 3/9/2020 6:10 PM, Alastair Campbell wrote:
>>
>>     Hi everyone,
>>
>>     It was an interesting conversation on the normative/informative
>>     aspects in silver / WCAG 3, I just wanted to provide an example
>>     for consideration.
>>
>>     We have a sliding scale of granularity, from least granular to
>>     most granular:
>>
>>       * WCAG 2.x Principle (a categorisation tag)
>>       * WCAG 2.x guideline
>>       * Silver guideline
>>       * WCAG 2.x Success criteria
>>       * *(Current informative line)*
>>       * Silver Getting started / WCAG 2.x Understanding
>>       * Silver methods
>>       * WCAG 2.x Techniques
>>
>>     My main points were that:
>>
>>       * ‘normative requirement’ does not need to equal ‘testable
>>         statement’, they can be different things.
>>       * The more content that is normative, the more that has to go
>>         through a more complex process.
>>
>>     So my suggestion was to add something concise between the
>>     guideline and method level.
>>
>>     Taking a concrete example, e.g. Visual contrast of text
>>     <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://raw.githack.com/w3c/silver/ED-draft=comments-changes-js/guidelines/index.html*visual-contrast-of-text__;Iw!!GqivPVa7Brio!K2X5bRVaQPSOBChUaWfTZIqA2Cb7LcCJtGj5Ctzx4o94FanILkCempgZPnvFu7TEKQ$>,
>>     the ‘normative’ bits could be something like:
>>
>>     *2.3 Visual Contrast of Text*
>>
>>     Provide sufficient contrast between foreground text and its
>>     background.
>>
>>     Text meets the _Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm_ unless it
>>     is _incidental_.
>>
>>     The last line could be behind a show/hide, or styled differently,
>>     or be in the top line of Getting started. The links would go to
>>     the evaluation tab and a definition of incidental. It could also
>>     be much longer if that was easier to understand.
>>
>>     Or for clear language:
>>
>>     *2.2 Clear Language*
>>
>>     Use clear language to make it easier for readers to understand.
>>
>>     Ensure that text content follows the _principles for plain
>>     language_ by editing it to match, following a style guide, or
>>     testing and updating it.
>>
>>     I hashed that together from the “How” and the method information.
>>
>>     To address another issue around the complexity of language: If
>>     the normative language is not constrained by being a very concise
>>     testable statement it could be longer and easier to understand.
>>     Adjusting some of the ‘how to’ material could also be the
>>     solution, and marking that as normative.
>>
>>     Another aspect is that some ‘normative requirements’ could be
>>     process based, e.g. When creating or updating navigation a
>>     user-centred design approach is included. That might be a
>>     silver/gold (or whatever the terms are) criteria compared to WCAG
>>     2.x, but I don’t see that as a problem for ‘normative requirements’.
>>
>>     Cheers,
>>
>>     -Alastair
>>
>
>
> -- 
> *​John Foliot* | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC 
> Representative
> Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
> deque.com 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://deque.com/__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!K2X5bRVaQPSOBChUaWfTZIqA2Cb7LcCJtGj5Ctzx4o94FanILkCempgZPnvC7-wNoQ$>
>
>