RE: ACT Rules, a fitting replacement for Failure Techniques?

When writing the Trusted Tester process, we wrote the tests so they covered the Failure Techniques and would result in a failure of the SC.

While I agree they were an odd fit, the Failure Techniques are a quick way for authors to learn what NOT to do. I don’t think that’s as easy to find in the ACT Rules.


Thanks,
Kathy Eng


From: Wilco Fiers <wilco.fiers@deque.com>
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2019 7:14 AM
To: Alistair Garrison <alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com>
Cc: Stein Erik Skotkjerra <ses@siteimprove.com>; Accessibility Conformance Testing <public-wcag-act@w3.org>
Subject: Re: ACT Rules, a fitting replacement for Failure Techniques?

Hey Alistair,
ACT Rules and failure techniques serve essentially the same purpose, although they have a different target audience. Rules are written for testers, whereas techniques are for content authors.

My initial thinking, as Stein Erik pointed out was to straight up try to replace failure techniques with ACT rules. My thoughts on that have evolved a little. I think actively trying to replace failure techniques is going to create resistance, and make publishing ACT rules more difficult than it needs to be. If you're right about rules being a suitable replacement (and I think you are), then people will stop using failure techniques, and they will be deemphasised over time to the point where they'll be deprecated.

W


On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 11:57 AM Alistair Garrison <alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com<mailto:alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com>> wrote:
Great!.  When I mentioned replacement, I should clarify that I meant removing Failure Techniques entirely.

So you have just Sufficient Techniques and ACT Rules.  Which might then fit very nicely with the AG’s direction of travel.

All the best

Alistair

From: Stein Erik Skotkjerra <ses@siteimprove.com<mailto:ses@siteimprove.com>>
Date: Friday, 26 April 2019 at 10:53
To: Alistair Garrison <alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com<mailto:alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com>>, Accessibility Conformance Testing <public-wcag-act@w3.org<mailto:public-wcag-act@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: ACT Rules, a fitting replacement for Failure Techniques?

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Hi, Alistair,
Agreed. It would make sense. Actually this has been discussed several times in meetings, and Wilco has presented the idea to the AG. He even did an example of how this might look:
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/pull/381<https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fw3c%2Fwcag%2Fpull%2F381&data=02%7C01%7Ceng%40access-board.gov%7C890512036b4643ac692e08d6ca38578b%7Cfc6093f5e55e4f93b2cf26d0822201c9%7C0%7C0%7C636918740679955679&sdata=d65%2B0i1%2FNdLpsi8Si0EcLBIVBXaZRuY8eUlbT1agt2U%3D&reserved=0>
My understanding is that the AG are focusing a lot on sufficient techniques over failure techniques, though.

I don’t know where the discussion landed with the AG, but maybe it would make sense to revisit this.



Stein Erik Skotkjerra
Head of Accessibility Relations

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From: Alistair Garrison <alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com<mailto:alistair.garrison@levelaccess.com>>
Date: Friday, 26 April 2019 at 11.38
To: Accessibility Conformance Testing <public-wcag-act@w3.org<mailto:public-wcag-act@w3.org>>
Subject: ACT Rules, a fitting replacement for Failure Techniques?
Resent-From: <public-wcag-act@w3.org<mailto:public-wcag-act@w3.org>>
Resent-Date: Friday, 26 April 2019 at 11.38

Hi,

I’m looking ahead and starting to realised that the ACT Rules we create could be a very fitting replacement for Failure Techniques (which I’ve felt have always sat a little strangely in the whole process).

I’m still, of course, a firm believer in using W3C Sufficient Techniques (where available) to show someone how to fix an issue found via a rule – as I’ve said many times.

So, in my head, ACT rules perfectly play Yin to Sufficient Techniques Yang.  In a way that Failure Techniques never quite did.

Interested to hear others thoughts on this.

All the best

Alistair

---

Alistair Garrison
Director of Accessibility Research
Level Access
+44 131 460 7871 (o)
+44 7925 045791 (c/m)





--
Wilco Fiers
Axe product owner - Co-facilitator WCAG-ACT - Chair ACT-R / Auto-WCAG
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