Re: Finding complete processes

Dear all, 

I strongly believe that the scope of the evaluation should be the wished for WCAG 2.0 defined conformance claim (detailing website sections, pages, processes, etc...) being made by the website owner / developer (based on http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance), rather than what we are finding difficult to define, but easy to term, "the whole website".

Top reasons for this I believe are: 

1) It supports, even encourages, detailed conformance claims to be made by the people responsible for the website.  If you could just say "www.mysite.com conforms" what would the point of http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance be...
2) It tells the public exactly what conforms in the website - a bit more like the VPAT.  If the conformance claim state that a website's shopping process (defined by urls) conforms to x and y,  a user will be certain that it will be accessible to them.
3) It makes evaluation more precise, and more efficient, as we know exactly what needs to be assessed (i.e. what is defined in the conformance claim) - and means that we would only ever need to assess the new parts of a conformance claim on an on-going basis; and 
4) If the website contains any complete processes which back-ends into third party pages - we would not be allowed to say "the whole website" conforms in any case (as mentioned in my previous mail).  That could render the evaluation methodology useless to an awful number of websites, as "their whole website" could never be said to conform - so why bother to use the evaluation methodology... 

As time goes on I can think of more and more good reasons for choosing WCAG 2.0 defined conformance claims, over "the whole website",  as the scope of the evaluation.  However, it is your thoughts / comments on the above that I am most interested in...

Very best regards 

Alistair Garrison

On 1 Dec 2011, at 11:27, Wilco Fiers wrote:

> Hey Eric / all,
> 
> I think the question might actually answer it's self. Since the scope of the evaluation is a complete websites (we decided the methodology was to evaluate websites, not just parts of a website), if a process is part of the website, then therefore it should be included in the scope of the evaluation. I'm a big fan of using the strictest interpretation of the definition of process. Which it seems to me has two parts to it, first of is that there is a required action. Some very specific thing must occure, such as submiting a specific for, or activating a specific link or button (note that I'm not saying clicking it, because there are other ways to activate a link). Secondly, something is only a process if there is more then one required actions, to get a specific outcome. That is, something which can only be achieved by doing these required actions.
> 
> An interesting consequence of requiring complete processes to be accessible, is that a single web page, if it is part of a process, can be part of multiple websites. An online payment system such as Paypal for example. Pages on paypal.com can easilly be a used in processes originating from many different websites. Since the pages on which such processes start are clearly part of those websites (and not for instance Paypal), and WCAG 2 doesn't allow us to say these pages are conform, unless the rest of the process conforms as well, the Paypal pages must be included in the scope of the evaluation. Otherwise we can't make the claim that all web pages of a given website are conform WCAG 2.
> 
> Considering that, I think that an interesting question to answer is; are there other examples of web pages that can be part of multiple websites? I'd be in favor of making this the only exception, and for all other pages to have a many-to-one relationship with a website. That might take some work to define this properly, but it seems to make intuitive sence.
> 
> That was a bit longer then I intended, sorry, interesting stuff! I can't help it.
> 
> Wilco
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> Van: Velleman, Eric [evelleman@bartimeus.nl]
> Verzonden: donderdag 1 december 2011 10:40
> Aan: Martijn Houtepen; Alistair Garrison; Eval TF; KerstinProbiesch
> Onderwerp: RE: Finding complete processes
> 
> Yes!
> But is a game/complete process always part of the scope if it is on a website? Can we include or exclude parts?
> Kindest regards,
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> ________________________________________
> Van: Martijn Houtepen [m.houtepen@accessibility.nl]
> Verzonden: woensdag 30 november 2011 10:01
> Aan: Alistair Garrison; Eval TF; Kerstin Probiesch
> Onderwerp: RE: Finding complete processes
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I agree. I think a predefined way of navigating, leading to a goal of some kind (a download for example) could be regarded a 'complete process' as well. In the case of point-and-click adventure games, the whole game will be a 'complete process'.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Martijn
> 
> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: Alistair Garrison [mailto:alistair.j.garrison@gmail.com]
> Verzonden: woensdag 30 november 2011 9:36
> Aan: Eval TF; Kerstin Probiesch
> Onderwerp: Re: Finding complete processes
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Just adding to my previous mail.
> 
> The simplest way to find complete processes might be to search (scan) the site for forms (excluding those in every page i.e. search)... Saying that, search (and other 'on every page' forms) probably should be included once as a complete process.
> 
> Again, all the best
> 
> Alistair
> 
> 
> 
> 
>