RE: Looking at SC 2.4.5 Multiple Ways with "UI Context"

GV:   can't do that.  But what we CAN do is to say that for xy there is no accessibility supported way to do z or something like that.  That  would indicate (if we determine this) that there is no way to do this for some major type of content.  (Or types).     (should not be some strange fringe case)

AH:  We can say that we do not know how this applies outside the Web environment.  That is different than saying it doesn't apply, or we can't apply it, but only says we don't know at this point.  I think that is honest and accurate for our work, and we really need to be considering putting that in some of these wehre we areally are not clear.  This leaves the markers of the spaces where dragons be for others to follow.



From: Peter Korn [mailto:peter.korn@oracle.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2012 9:57 PM
To: Gregg Vanderheiden
Cc: public-wcag2ict-tf@w3.org
Subject: Re: Looking at SC 2.4.5 Multiple Ways with "UI Context"

Gregg,


<PK>
Hi gang,

SC 2.4.5<https://sites.google.com/site/wcag2ict/home/2-operable/24-provide-ways-to-help-users-navigate-find-content-and-determine-where-they-are/245-multiple-ways> Multiple Ways was not one we reached consensus on.  Nor have we had much discussion on it thus far.

My thoughts on that can be found at the Applying UI Context<https://sites.google.com/site/wcag2ict/cross-cutting-issues-and-notes/user-interface-context/applying-ui-context> page in the fifth row, but to facilitate discussion, I reiterate them here.

The software portion of the UIC Proposal is:
For software this applies directly as written and as described in  INTENT  from Understanding WCAG 2.0  (above) with the word "user interface context" substituted for Web Page  and "software program" substituted for "set of web pages".

NOTE:  In the Understanding WCAG 2.0 writeup for this success criterion the WCAG Working Group gives examples of browsing and search as two possible methods for locating a Web page within a set of Web pages.  Both of these approaches would appear to be supported by most Electronic Documents,  and browsing and searching of help functions would appear to allow locating major sections in software as well.

Note: Modal dialog boxes by their nature are considered part of a process that you can not navigate away from and must completed or cancelled before continuing.
I don't see how one locates a "set of user interface elements" within a "software program".  This set could be not a single window but a collection of windows; such collections aren't generally named entities one can navigate to as a collection.
This ties into my concerns with 2.4.2 about what is a title of such a collection of windows.

Fundamentally I believe this SC doesn't really apply to software, and I think the right thing to do is go back to WCAG and see if we have their blessing to say exactly that.

GV:   can't do that.  But what we CAN do is to say that for xy there is no accessibility supported way to do z or something like that.  That  would indicate (if we determine this) that there is no way to do this for some major type of content.  (Or types).     (should not be some strange fringe case)

Then the Access Board  and m376 can do their job.

I'm not sure if that is true here though.    But if it is -- that is the way we can deal with it.

Fair enough.  Do you have any reaction to how one locates a "set of user interface elements" within a "software program"?  Particularly where that set encompasses multiple non-modal windows?  2.4.2 language has consensus, so we don't have to deal with the UIC question there, but fundamentally I see it as the same question.


Regards,

Peter
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