- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@sidar.org>
- Date: Tue, 05 Apr 2005 23:06:07 +1000
- To: shadi@w3.org, "'Paul Walsh'" <paulwalsh@segalamtest.com>, public-wai-ert@w3.org
On Tue, 05 Apr 2005 03:51:50 +1000, Shadi Abou-Zahra <shadi@w3.org> wrote: >> I thought the idea was to use EARL as a click through from a WAI logo >> to demonstrate compliance of an accessible website. Yep, that is the idea in this particular thread. (It isn't the idea of EARL in general, just one use case). >> If this is the case, then it won't necessarily add much more value >> to its current use, as it will not actually prove anything. > True. The intent is not to *prove* accessibility but provide more > credibility and granularity than the logos. Please also see: > <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-wai-ert/2005Apr/0016.html> Well, at the moment people put a logo onto a page an claim it conforms to WCAG at level double-A, and that's all the information they provide. There are some areas in which claims of conformance are open to interpretation anyway, and there are a lot more cases where people simply haven't done proper testing - for example they run something through a tool, ignore any kind of manual testing, and then claim that since the tool failed to find any violations the page conforms. (This is one approach to testing conformance, but not the one specified by WCAG, which requires that a set of tests are actually positively met). So in practical terms the fact that a claim of double-A conformanceis expected to detail the results of a number of sub-tests which make up the overall level is likely to lead to more of these tests actually being done, and thus more accurate claims. In addition, it is easy, using EARL, for a third-party organisation to make claims. On the one hand this allows for simple third-party testing, and on the other hand it makes it easier for third parties to demonstrate when a claim is false. Given that this is a battle of reputations, in that a person or orgaisation who makes demonstrably false claims is going to lose credibility very rapidly, this is likely to be a self-regulating processwhos overall result is a tendency to greater accuracy in claims by site developers, tool vendors, and third party assessors. cheers Chaals -- Charles McCathieNevile Fundacion Sidar charles@sidar.org +61 409 134 136 http://www.sidar.org
Received on Tuesday, 5 April 2005 13:06:15 UTC