Catherine Brys says:
Level 2 Success Criteria for Guideline 3.1
Point 1: Will this always be possible? What about minority languages and dialects?
Point 2: What about regional languages and dialects?
Point 3 - Note: What is meant with 'standard extension of the language'? Is this unambiguous?
In the Guide to Guideline 3.1 Level 2 Success Criterion 1, John included the technique Identifying national or regional language variants which demonstrated how to specify local dialects such as Canadian French (fr-ca) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt-br). The I18N WG's article Language tags in HTML and XML explains RFC 3066 rules including the primary subtag and optional subtag (in "fr-ca" fr is the primary subtag and "ca" is the optional subtag). The article also describes "Language tags starting with i- are defined in the IANA registry of language tags. Language tags starting with x- denote experimental tags without guarantee for uniqueness. The list of ISO-639 two-letter and three-letter language codes is provided by the ISO 639-2 Registration Authority (Library of Congress, USA)."
Propose: link to this information from the General Technique and close the issue.
Catherine asks if we should includ information about abbreviations and acronyms. Yes, we should because it can significantly enhance (or decrease if not provided) someone's ability to understand the content if the abbreviations are not expanded. However, it is at Level 3 since this is not widely applicable to all sites and applications and is an additional enhancement.
Propose: close the issue with this explanation.
Is the benefit, "Facilitating unambiguous decoding of characters and words in content is also helpful for individuals who are learning to read or learning a second language." still applicable? This seems more related to some of the SC that have been removed, unless this relates to abbreviations and definitions. Some of the benefits in the Guides for Guideline 3.1 success criteria mention decoding. This could also be related to the language extension issue (1146).
Propose: Replace this benefit with "Identifying specific definitions of words helps people with disabilities who have difficultly using context to aid understanding. This includes people with certain learning disabilities and cognitive impairments. In addition, people with low vision often lose context when screen magnifiers zoom in on a small area of the screen. This success criterion also helps people who have difficulty recognizing words (decoding) by limiting the number of dictionary entries they must read in order to find the definition that fits the context." from Benefits: How Guideline 3.1 L3 SC2 helps people with disabilities
Also, this should replace the other benefit, "Defining key terms and specialized language will help people who are not familiar with the topic." and close issue 814.
Current text: "Providing a summary of the visual cues that show relationships between complex information helps people who do not use visual cues or who have difficulty using visual cues. For example, people who are completely blind do not use any visual cues, while people with dyslexia or with low vision might have difficulty interpreting visual cues."
Propose: remove this benefit since it does not seem related to any of the existing SC.
Current text: "A Web page discusses Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillipines. The page includes a description of the 1991 eruption as well as photos of the eruption and its aftermath. The page also includes a brief explanation of why volcanoes erupt. To clarify this explanation, there is also a link to an accessible video and 3D simulation of what happened underneath the crust and within the volcano during the eruption."
This seems relate to L3SC5 in that the photos, "brief explanation" (summary), video, and simulations are supplemental content to aid understanding. Should each example clearly state which SC it relates to?
Propose: s/brief explanation/summary. add "this example illustrates L3SC5" and include in the Guide to L3SC5 - examples (proposed) (replacing the existing example 1 in "Examples of readability in English text content") OR replace this example with that from "Examples of readability in English text content".
Current text: "A grandfather's hobby is listening to and playing music. He creates a Web site that includes examples of many different types of music and musical instruments. When describing specific types of music, he links to a short sound clip."
Since the page describes the types of music and the sound clips are examples, the clip is already likely described. To avoid encouraging copyright violation and to clarify that this example also satisfies Guideline 1.1, change the example to read, "A grandfather's hobby is listening to and playing music. He creates a Web site that describes many different types of music and musical instruments. When describing specific types of music, he links to a short, publicly-available sound clip. The description of the type of music describes what the listener will hear in the sound clip, satisfying Guideline 1.1 Level 1 Success Criterion 3."
This also seems like a good example to include in the Guide for G3.1L3SC5.
Propose: include the example as reworded in the guidelines. include the example in the guide for L3SC5. then, close the issue.
Commentor says,
"Who Benefits from Guideline 3.1 (Informative) Using clear and simple language also benefits people whose first language differs from your own, including those people who communicate primarily in sign language."
In Germany, the inclusion of deaf people as beneficiaries of "simple language" has already been used as an argument against the use of sign language translations. From our point of view, the wording regarding deaf people should be removed.
However, as Joe points out, it seems there is confusion in the German policy and that the German policy should be corrected rather than us removing this benefit. Understanding written text has been clearly demonstrated as an issue for people whose first/primary language is sign language.
Propose: Close issue. Keep benefit OR focus benefit on reading disabilities (assuming that people whose first/primary language is sign language will be included in this group) ala the benefits in the Guide for Guideline 3.1 L3 SC5.