Re: some initial questions from the previous thread

Hi Detlev,

On 24.8.2011 10:43, Detlev Fischer wrote:
> Am 24.08.2011 02:11, schrieb Vivienne CONWAY:
>> Thanks Detlev.
>>
>> As I will be looking at these sites regularly (primarily with automated
>> tools due to the number of sites), what is puzzling me most is how to
>> actually score them. While I like the pass/fail/near approach for the
>> site owner's use, to compare them I need percentages. Such as:
>> P: 65%
>> O: 80%
>> U: 25%
>> R: 90%
>> Overall: 65%
>>
> Confronted with a large nuber of sites, one solution is of course to use
> automated toos. The problem, as we all know, is that many serious
> problems are not caught by them, and in turn, the percentage values
> suggest a kind of accuracy that is not really backed by the full
> evidence but simply based on just those issues amenable to automatic
> testing.
>
> We know many people are quite happy when they get a nice score or chart,
> they don't understand or even want to know how shaky these may be. I
> just think that *if* you can influence *how* some aggregate score is
> computed, the guiding principle would be for it to reflect the actual
> difficulty people have in accessing a site.
>
> Maybe it's a corny example but let's compare a site to a car. You can
> make all sorts of checks, engine and breaks and mirrors and body and
> interior are all fine, but if one critical thing (steering,
> transmission) fails, you can't use the car. (Think of visual CAPTCHA for
> blind people, or keyboard trap for keyboard users). The risk is that
> *any* aggregation of scores, even weighted scores, will 'drown' critical
> failures.
>
> So I believe that if there is no time for detailed testing, testing for
> critical failures is still more relevant than creating an automated test
> score. If you have both, even better.
>
> If it was indeed possible to decide on a limited number of
> evidence-based critical failures (say, 10), i.e., frequently observed
> aspects without which a site would be unusable or very hard to use for
> some populations, you could probably also compile a numeric outcome,
> summing up 1 or 0 per issue covered. In this case however, if you'd have
> less than 10 out of 10, its time for service... It's rough and simple,
> but that reflects the coarseness of approach and seems therefore adequate.

Interesting thought.

Besides the difficulty of defining "critical failures", could this on 
the long-run lead to developers only aiming to fulfill these minimum 
issues and leave out other important ones?

Can the set of "critical failures" be defined to be WCAG .2.0 Level A?


> On another note, I also wonder what people would do with the break-down
> of percentages in the POUR schema. On some level, the results should be
> actionable and to be so, it would be nice to be be able to point to the
> most glaring problems. Maybe it is more useful to know what section of
> the population with disabilites is badly served. So that would suggest a
> scheme where you group things by
>
> M: Motor impairment
> B: Blindness
> V: Visual impairment
> H: Hearing impairment
> C: Cognitive impairment
>
> Success criteria may then be allocated to M,B,V,H,C and you would have
> many double allocations, for example, between M and B.
>
> Maybe critical failures could be allocated to populations (incl. double
> counts). I just run through the improvised list of 10 critical failures
> I made up earlier and add up:
>
> M: 4
> B: 6
> V: 4
> H: 2
> C: 2
>
> Whether that kind of result would be more meaningful I am not really
> sure about. At least if one of the groups is really badly served, their
> associations and interest groups would have better evidence when they
> campaign for improvements.

I always feel uncomfortable using "categories of people" as it risks 
missing individuals with less frequent profiles (type of disability), or 
forcing individuals into performa categories. It also risks user 
representations campaigning against each other rather than together.

Best,
   Shadi


> Regards, Detlev
>
>> Problem is, how to work out that percentage. I could use number of
>> violations/number of pages checked. However this does not weight the
>> more critical errors - like the ones you cited. I could work out
>> some kind of algorithm where violations of the critical issues were
>> say 1.5:1, items such as non-critical validation errors were .5:1
>> or something similar. Thoughts?
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Vivienne L. Conway
>> ________________________________________
>> From: public-wai-evaltf-request@w3.org
>> [public-wai-evaltf-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of fischer@dias.de
>> [fischer@dias.de]
>> Sent: Tuesday, 23 August 2011 11:04 PM
>> To: public-wai-evaltf@w3.org
>> Subject: RE: some initial questions from the previous thread
>>
>> Quoting Vivienne CONWAY<v.conway@ecu.edu.au>:
>>
>>> HI all
>>> Just thought I'd weigh in on this one as I'm currently puzzling over
>>> the issue of how to score websites. I'm just about to start a
>>> research project where I'll have over 100 websites assessed monthly
>>> over a period of 2 + years.
>>
>> If you will be doing this on your own or without team this work
>> programme translates to checking more than 4-5 sites per day! And if
>> the compliance level is AA you probably need to focus on some key
>> requirements, especially those where a failure would make a site
>> completely inaccessible to some population. Just looking at WCAG
>> success criteria, these may be the ones which most often exclude
>> people, ordered by importance from testing experience(feel free to
>> disagree):
>>
>> * Lack of keyboard accessibility (SC 2.1.1, 2.1.2)
>> * Important images like controls without alt text (1.1.1)
>> * CAPTCHAs w/o alternative (SC 1.1.1)
>> * Lack of captions in videos (SC 1.2.2, 1.2.4)
>> * Really low contrast of text (SC 1.4.3)
>> * Bad or no visibility of focus (SC 2.4.7)
>> * Important controls implemented as background image without text
>> replacement (SC 1.1.1)
>> * Important fields (such as search text input) w/o labels (SC 2.4.6)
>> * lack of structure (e.g. no or inconsistent headings) (SC 1.3.1)
>> * Self-starting / unstoppable animation, carussels, etc (SC 2.2.1, 2.2.2)
>>
>> Well, having written this, it may seem a bit arbitrary - but I believe
>> the list has many or most of the grave errors that we encounter in
>> testing.
>>
>> If there was a statistic on "show stoppers" things that make sites
>> inaccessible or impede access severely, such an approach had a better
>> basis, of course...
>>
>> Just my 2 cents,
>> Detlev
>>
>>
>> ) that can be tested relatively quickly and without going onto too
>> much detail.
>>
>> I think as long as the method is transparent, / documented and its
>> limitations are clearly stated, the results can still be valuable. I
>> need to come up with a scoring method
>>> (preferably a percentage) due to the need to compare a website
>>> within those of its own classification (e.g. federal government,
>>> corporate, etc), and compare the different classifications. I am
>>> thinking of a method where the website gets a percentage score for
>>> each of the POUR principles, and then an overall score. What I'm
>>> strugling with is what scoring method to use and how to put
>>> different weights upon different aspects and at different levels.
>>> I'll be assessing to WCAG 2.0 AA (as that's the Australian
>>> standard). All input and suggestions are gratefully accepted and
>>> may also be useful to our discussions here as it's a real-life
>>> situation for me. It also relates to may of the questions raised in
>>> this thread by Shadi. Looking forward to some interesting discussion.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards
>>>
>>> Vivienne L. Conway
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: public-wai-evaltf-request@w3.org
>>> [public-wai-evaltf-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Shadi Abou-Zahra
>>> [shadi@w3.org]
>>> Sent: Monday, 22 August 2011 7:34 PM
>>> To: Eval TF
>>> Subject: some initial questions from the previous thread
>>>
>>> Dear Eval TF,
>>>
>>> From the recent thread on the construction of WCAG 2.0 Techniques, here
>>> are some questions to think about:
>>>
>>> * Is the "evaluation methodology" expected to be carried out by one
>>> person or by a group of more than one persons?
>>>
>>> * What is the expected level of expertise (in accessibility, in web
>>> technologies etc) of persons carrying out an evaluation?
>>>
>>> * Is the involvement of people with disabilities a necessary part of
>>> carrying out an evaluation versus an improvement of the quality?
>>>
>>> * Are the individual test results binary (ie pass/fail) or a score
>>> (discrete value, ratio, etc)?
>>>
>>> * How are these test results aggregated into an overall score (plain
>>> count, weighted count, heuristics, etc)?
>>>
>>> * Is it useful to have a "confidence score" for the tests (for example
>>> depending on the degree of subjectivity or "difficulty")?
>>>
>>> * Is it useful to have a "confidence score" for the aggregated result
>>> (depending on how the evaluation is carried out)?
>>>
>>>
>>> Feel free to chime in if you have particular thoughts on any of these.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Shadi
>>>
>>> --
>>> Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/
>>> Activity Lead, W3C/WAI International Program Office
>>> Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
>>> Research and Development Working Group (RDWG)
>>>
>>> This e-mail is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient
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>>> University in general and the University accepts no liability for
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>>>
>>> CRICOS IPC 00279B
>>>
>>>
>>
>> This e-mail is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient you
>> must not disclose or use the information contained within. If you have
>> received it in error please return it to the sender via reply e-mail
>> and delete any record of it from your system. The information
>> contained within is not the opinion of Edith Cowan University in
>> general and the University accepts no liability for the accuracy of
>> the information provided.
>>
>> CRICOS IPC 00279B
>>
>
>

-- 
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/
Activity Lead, W3C/WAI International Program Office
Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG)
Research and Development Working Group (RDWG)

Received on Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:54:40 UTC