Comment on WCAG-EM, W3C Working Draft 30 January 2014

WCAG-EM contains the statement,
"Methodology Requirement 4.a: Check that each full page (web page and web
page state) in the selected sample satisfies each of the WCAG 2.0 Success
Criteria of the target conformance level."

This statement and supporting material make it appear as though an *entire*
web page must be tested in its entirety in order to satisfy the
requirements.  This ignores the fact that websites composed of a series of
static pages is the exception, rather than the rule.   The vast majority of
websites these days are presented through the use of some server-side means
to generate the final interface - from basic SSI to template systems, to
complex web applications being generated from content management systems
and everything in between.  In some cases the server-side generation merely
wraps content in a global wrapper while in others the server-side code
merges data and markup as part of a template.   This methodology seems to
ignore that fact and may mislead the reader into believing that the final
rendered web page(s) must be tested in their entirety. This risks requiring
the tester to perform needless duplicate work.

While the goal is and should remain a full page that is accessible, the
testing of the entire page is unnecessary


-- 
Karl Groves
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