Re: Success, Failure techniques - side issue for discussion

Hi Alistair,

Well your suggestion is a procedure so we are on the right track. However 
asking developers for the techniques they used is not (in my 
experience)practical in the real world. We recently had to do a series of 
eleven ministry sites in just four days - it would take four weeks (at 
least) to get any  response from the full eleven teams! The primary 
procedure must be stand-alone, independent, efficient, verifiable, 
repeatable and as simple as possible.

Sorry
Richard

-----Original Message----- 
From: Alistair Garrison
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 3:07 PM
To: RichardWarren ; Eval TF
Subject: Re: Success, Failure techniques - side issue for discussion

Dear All,

"an evaluator needs a procedure which is capable of recognising and 
analysing the use (or not) of those techniques (added: and failure 
conditions) whilst still being aware that there could be alternative 
solutions"…

Might such a procedure be:
1) ask the web developer what techniques they used;
2) determine if these techniques broadly fulfil the relevant Success 
Criteria;
3) if they do: evaluate if their selected techniques have been properly 
implemented, and evaluate all relevant failure techniques; and
  if they don't: suggest further techniques, but still evaluate if their 
selected techniques have been properly implemented, and evaluate all 
relevant failure techniques.

You would of course need to ask for the techniques - in order to make such a 
procedure reproducible.

All the best

Alistair

On 13 Jun 2012, at 15:35, RichardWarren wrote:

> Hi Shadi,
>
> Thank you - I believe that your argument re-inforces my point that we 
> should concentrate on procedures for checking compliance, not solely the 
> existence (or not) of certain techniques. Yes F65 says that no alt = 
> failure, but H2 says that no alt is acceptable if the image is a link that 
> also contains text within the anchor element.
>
> I do not think it is our task to refine  WCAG techniques etc. but rather 
> it is to check for compliance with the actual GUIDELINES in practice and 
> intent to ensure that the web content is accessible to all users. We thus 
> need a procedure that checks first for the obvious (in this case has the 
> developer used the technique of including and alt attribute and is it 
> suitable? ). Only then, if the obvious technique has not been used, we 
> need to include a check to see if the image is included in an anchor (or 
> other similar resource) with adjacent text within that resource (H2). Or, 
> indeed any other technique that ensures AT users can understand what the 
> image is for/about.
>
> I am afraid that evaluation cannot be properly done by simply failing an 
> issue because a certain "General Failure" applies. I still believe that 
> Success and failure Techniques are primarily aimed at the web developer 
> whereas an evaluator needs a procedure which is capable of recognising and 
> analysing the use (or not) of those techniques whilst still being aware 
> that there could be alternative solutions.
>
> If we stick stubbornly to the published techniques, and only the published 
> techniques, we are in danger of stifling the development of the web.
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Shadi Abou-Zahra
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 1:20 PM
> To: Richard Warren
> Cc: Eval TF
> Subject: Re: Success, Failure techniques - side issue for discussion
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> Looking at "General Failure F65" as per your example:
>
> Case 1 correctly fails because there is no alt attribute and a screen
> reader would in most cases start reading the filename. Your example
> would work if you use null alt-text as "General Failure F65" advises
> about in section "Related Techniques".
>
> Case 2 uses the alt attribute so it does not fail "General Failure F65"
> (but we can't say much more about its conformance just from F65 alone).
>
> Now this is exactly the point: by looking only at the section called
> "Tests" we miss out important context and explanations, such as the
> important reference to "Technique H67" in this example.
>
> WCAG 2.0 Techniques and Failures (as Detlev correctly points out the
> terminology should be) are far from complete or perfect. We can talk
> about how to improve them both from how they are written and to how they
> are presented to evaluators. We can also explain the concept in our
> document more clearly. I think this would get more to the core of the
> problem then by trying to re-label the sections as they are.
>
> Regards,
>  Shadi
>
>
> On 13.6.2012 13:04, RichardWarren wrote:
>> Sorry but I got my cases mixed up.
>> The last paragraphs should have read
>>
>> NOW here is the rub. – Failure F65 says that both my case 1 and H2 are 
>> failures because neither use the alt attribute !!!! So if I rely on 
>> Failure Techniques I would fail both my case 1 and anything using H2.
>>
>> HOWEVER – using testing procedures I can check that case 2 passes because 
>> it has (reasonably) meaningful alt attributes; whilst case 1 passes 
>> because it makes perfect sense when read out by my screen reader, my 
>> blind testers confirm it is good, it still makes sense if the image fails 
>> to display. The only thing about case 1 is that Google will not catalogue 
>> the image (which might be a good thing !)
>>
>> Sorry about that – poor proof reading on my part
>> Richard
>>
>> From: RichardWarren
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 11:21 AM
>> To: Eval TF
>> Subject: Success, Failure techniques - side issue for discussion
>>
>> Hi.
>> I would like to drop in a  (very rough) example to explain why I am 
>> concerned that we are getting hung up on the techniques used by the 
>> developers rather than the procedures used by the evaluator.
>>
>> Case 1
>> <ol>
>> <li>Here is a picture of Uncle Fred wearing his bright Christmas 
>> Jumper<img src=”fred.jpg”></li>
>> <li>Here is a picture of Aunt Mary setting fire to the Christmas 
>> pudding<img src=”mary.jpg”</li>
>> <ol>
>>
>> Case 2
>> <ol>
>> <li><img src=”fred.jpg” alt =”Uncle Fred”></li>
>> <li><img src=”mary.jpg” alt = “Aunt Mary”>  </li>
>> </ol>
>>
>> Now case 2 employs the “alt” attribute, so it meets a success technique 
>> (even though it is less informative than case 1)
>>
>> If Example 1 were links (using the<  a>  element) it would also pass 
>> muster (H2 Combining adjacent image and text links), but it is not a link 
>> and there is no documentation (that I know of) within WCAG about this 
>> specific situation (within the<li>  element).
>>
>> NOW here is the rub. – Failure F65 says that both my example 2 and H2 are 
>> failures because neither use the alt attribute !!!!   So if I rely on 
>> Failure Techniques I would fail both my example 2 and anything using H2.
>>
>> HOWEVER – using testing procedures I can check that example 1 passes 
>> because it has (reasonably) meaningful alt attributes;  whilst example 2 
>> passes because it makes perfect sense when read out by my screen reader, 
>> my blind testers confirm it is good, it still makes sense if the image 
>> fails to display. The only thing about example 2 is that Google will not 
>> catalogue the image (which might be a good thing !)
>>
>>
>> So I return to my original thought that step 1e should be about 
>> procedures not techniques.
>>
>> Bets wishes
>> Richard
>>
>>
>>
>
> -- 
> 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, 13 June 2012 15:04:59 UTC