Re: Accreditation Catalogue Writeup for Discussion

For discussion, here are also some comments I've sent to Vivienne:

#1. Most of the text describes the motivation of businesses to pursue 
accreditation rather than to describe aspects of accreditation itself -- 
for example, it would be good highlight some of the arguments for and 
against the different methods of accreditation;

#2. I think there are many more research questions (that are also more 
interesting IMHO) -- for example, to research schemes that are valid yet 
practical for businesses and other types of organizations, and to 
develop approaches for co-existence of different accreditation methods;

#3. (very minor) "at which time it should be re-evaluated" seems more 
like an aspect of an accreditation scheme than of accreditation itself.

Follow-up thought: one of the biggest research challenges in this field 
is to identify accreditation schemes, potentially combining different 
methods, that can scale *up* (for example that can be applied to all 
public websites of a country etc.) and that can also scale *down* (for 
example to be applied to "mom's and pop's stores" websites). This is one 
of the fundamental challenges IMO.

Look forward to other people's inputs.

Best,
   Shadi


On 15.11.2013 10:28, Simon Harper wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> Here's what Vivienne has so far (for discussion on Wednesday) - but with
> a slight addition of the synopsis.
>
> Website accreditation is a statement that at a particular point in time
> this website has been evaluated according to a prescribed method, with a
> certain result, at which time it should be re-evaluated. Businesses who
> have worked on the accessibility of their website are drawn to
> accreditation schemes as a means of demonstrating their level of
> commitment to inclusiveness and creating a differentiation between their
> website and those of their competitors.  Some organisations pursue a
> form of third-party of external accreditation available from a provider,
> while other organisations choose to self-certify the accessibility
> compliance level of their website whether to WCAG 2.0, Section 508 or
> other guidelines.  Accreditation is also a component of building a
> website, relating to the method taken to create the website as described
> in BS:8878.  Accreditation is closely bounded by accessibility testing
> and as a result inherits the strengths and weakness of that testing.
> Further research is required in order to determine whether the fact that
> a website carries an accreditation necessarily means that it is more
> usable for people with disabilities.
>
>

-- 
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 Friday, 15 November 2013 09:53:01 UTC