FW: Conformance and method 'levels'

W3CAG having a second currency in addition to "points" came up on the call just now.  The context was the question:  Can websites claim/earning more than 100% for any one guideline?

Yes they can, but only if that > 100% does not offset scores for other guidelines.  One way to do that is to have "achievements" that go above and beyond the minimum requirements.

Below is an email from this summer where I outlined the idea.


From: Bruce Bailey
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019 8:50 AM
To: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>; Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>; public-silver@w3.org
Cc: 'Andrew Kirkpatrick' <akirkpat@adobe.com>; Shawn Lauriat <lauriat@google.com>
Subject: RE: Conformance and method 'levels'

I am going to suggest something fairly different for the scoring approach as such:   I think Silver needs a second "currency" in addition to points.

Think about how typical it is with mobile games to yes, be scoring points, but really how you advance is by unlocking achievements (e.g., earning gems).  PC builder games often have a similar mechanic.  With Blizzard's WarCraft, players needed to harvest both gold and wood, and one cannot convert gold to wood or vice versa - but the player needed gold before starting to harvest wood, and early units/buildings only require gold.  Starcraft used crystal minerals and "Vespene Gas", but  the idea was the same.

Keeping with the sporting theme, I will suggest "ribbons" as our second currency.  The most concrete normative parts, the Guidelines in Silver, would be point based.  The new and best practices behavior we want to encourage with Silver could mostly be ribbons.  For example, testing with end users earns a ribbon.  Testing with a wholly different set of end users earns another ribbon.  Third-party accreditation earns a ribbon.  Posting a machine-readable conformance claim is a ribbon.  There are lots of examples, and the ribbons might themselves be in different categories (colors), so Gold Medal means X number of points, and Y number of ribbons (perhaps with the qualifier that  Z number of those ribbons must be blue ribbons (with maybe blue ribbons being reserved for user testing)).

I think this helps with moving from WCAG 2x to Silver as well.  Points are assigned to WCAG 2x Success Criteria (10,000s of points for each A sc, 100s for each AA sc, and single digits for AAA sc (sorry, but mathematically, that is how it has to work (at least in the beginning)), but probably meeting some AAA sc earn ribbons as well.  Keep in mind that points are per site (the unit of conformance), not per page, and not per each element passing each SC.

With this model, a WCAG 2.0 Level AA conforming website might score 26,300 points (25*10K + 13*100), so we use that as the baseline for earning a Bronze for Silver.

With this model, Silver for Silver could be 26,301 points plus some number of ribbons.  Earning Gold for Silver will have to wait on firming up the Silver conformance mechanics.

Websites that are only concerned with Silver rankings would be earning points and ribbons from meeting Silver tests, methods, and guidelines.  Those websites would not need to be evaluated against 2x SC.

--
Bruce Bailey
Accessibility IT Specialist
U.S. Access Board
1331 F Street NW, Suite 1000
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bailey@access-board.gov<mailto:bailey@access-board.gov>

Thank you for your questions concerning section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1998.  Section 508 authorizes the Access Board to provide technical assistance to individuals and Federal departments and agencies concerning the requirements of this section.  Technical assistance provided in this email is intended solely as informal guidance; it is neither a determination of your legal rights or responsibilities, nor a statement of the official views of the U.S. Access Board or any other federal agency.  Any links to non-federal websites are provided as a courtesy and do not represent an endorsement of the linked information, products, or services.

From: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com<mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com>>
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2019 4:44 AM
To: Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>>; public-silver@w3.org<mailto:public-silver@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Conformance and method 'levels'

Oops, I think I opened the wrong can of worms, I had just meant to point to the thread in terms of how drafting the guidelines/methods will be heavily influenced by the scoring. I hadn't meant to get into the scoring approach as such.

-Alastair

Apologies for typos, sent from a mobile.
________________________________
From: Jeanne Spellman <jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com<mailto:jspellman@spellmanconsulting.com>>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2019 6:56:00 PM
To: public-silver@w3.org<mailto:public-silver@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Conformance and method 'levels'

Patrick's comment makes a lot of sense to me.

I think we want to be careful about swapping A for Bronze, AA for Silver and AAA for Gold.  We want to get away from levels for individual success criteria and look at the Bronze Silver Gold as an overall score.  But I get the idea that it is low points, medium points and high points.

jeanne
On 6/21/2019 12:00 PM, Alastair Campbell wrote:
Hi everyone,

I think this is a useful thread to be aware of when thinking about conformance and how different methods might be set at different levels:
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/782<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fw3c%2Fwcag%2Fissues%2F782&data=02%7C01%7Cbailey%40access-board.gov%7Cb84a28289d184982ba4108d6f6edf5ca%7Cfc6093f5e55e4f93b2cf26d0822201c9%7C0%7C0%7C636967899227197162&sdata=rWLofezwxZfCifSoushzTXtUgSiCIZnw9gpR%2F00teY4%3D&reserved=0>

It is about multimedia access, so the 1.2.x section in WCAG 2.x. You might think that it is fairly straightforward as the solutions are fairly cut & dried (captions, transcripts, AD etc.)

However, the tricky bit is at what level you require different solutions.

If you had a guideline such as "A user does not need to see in order to understand visual multimedia content", then Patrick's levelling in one of the comments<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fw3c%2Fwcag%2Fissues%2F782%23issuecomment-504038948&data=02%7C01%7Cbailey%40access-board.gov%7Cb84a28289d184982ba4108d6f6edf5ca%7Cfc6093f5e55e4f93b2cf26d0822201c9%7C0%7C0%7C636967899227197162&sdata=MC4WfocXDQrX0%2FU4A4lDfUnFdDjtpsHG8iw1Zd0KJC0%3D&reserved=0> makes sense:

  *   Bronze: EITHER provide AD or transcript
  *   Silver: provide AD and transcript
  *   Gold: Provide live transcript or live AD.

I raise this as if you read the thread, you'll see how the levels impacted the drafting of the guidelines, and I think we'll have a similar (or more complex?) dynamic for the scoring in Silver, and how methods are drafted.

Kind regards,

-Alastair

--

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