Re: The challenge of using Making Content Usable as a protocol

Mike,

I agree with many of your points, though there are some small differences that are likely worth discussion sometime in the future but not now.  My email’s goal was to explain the position on why Making Content Usable as an entire document raises concerns.  Thank you for hearing those concerns.

I wholeheartedly agree with your point “Can we first try to figure out how to measure and dissect stuff before we start discussing what we do with the results?” Yes, please.

Extending this conversation into something hopefully productive, I intend to document the following questions in the editor’s note but if either proposals has existing answers it may be worth capturing:

  1.  What is the right level of granularity for a protocol? Making Content Usable still feels (to me) like it is too big and complex (other reasons aside).
  2.  Is the intent of protocols to reference documents that include checkpoints*  that can be tested with high inter-rater reliability along with those that cannot? (*I am using checkpoint instead of test or evaluation as a catchall phrase for this email only)
  3.  Can checkpoints in a protocol duplicate tests in other parts of the guidelines? If so, how will those be handled (second question for later when we get to conformance)?

Kind regards,

Rachael



From: Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>
Date: Monday, June 20, 2022 at 2:44 AM
To: "Bradley-Montgomery, Rachael" <rmontgomery@loc.gov>
Cc: "public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org" <public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org>
Subject: Re: The challenge of using Making Content Usable as a protocol

Thanks for the clarification, Rachael. Three things that might help, from me:

  1.  I personally view the art of creating and validating accessibility as a continuum (running from  clear, machine-verifiable binaries at one end to malleable best practices at the other).
  2.  Further, my analysis suggests that every existing success criterion has multiple considerations that vary across this continuum, and
  3.  there should be ways of making much of this testable.


  *   placing the majority of guidance for supporting people with cognitive disabilities into a section of WCAG 3 that won’t likely be in the most basic levels of conformance (whatever those end up looking like)

See above. Further, it was my understanding that the entire valuation idea  (Bronze, etc) has been set aside as we try to first focus on ways to test/confirm success. So I don’t even know what “most basic level of conformance” means. This helps me understand the reaction/position, but conformance really feels like work that has to take place a good chunk of the way down the road. Can we first try to figure out how to measure and dissect stuff before we start discussing what we do with the results?

Thanks,
Mike

From: Bradley-Montgomery, Rachael <rmontgomery@loc.gov>
Date: Friday, June 17, 2022 at 11:14 AM
To: Michael Gower <michael.gower@ca.ibm.com>
Cc: public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org <public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: The challenge of using Making Content Usable as a protocol
Apologies, I didn’t catch that I emailed Michael Cooper rather than Michael Gower. Take 2. From: "Bradley-Montgomery, Rachael" <rmontgomery@loc.gov> Date: Friday, June 17, 2022 at 2:13 PM ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍
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Apologies, I didn’t catch that I emailed Michael Cooper rather than Michael Gower.

Take 2.

From: "Bradley-Montgomery, Rachael" <rmontgomery@loc.gov>
Date: Friday, June 17, 2022 at 2:13 PM
To: Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>
Cc: "public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org" <public-wcag3-protocols@w3.org>
Subject: The challenge of using Making Content Usable as a protocol

Hello Mike (protocols group ccd),

You asked today about why I felt Making Content Usable was not a good protocol.  This was discussed at a meeting a few months ago but I thought explaining via email could save some meeting time.  I believe that using Making Content Usable as a sample protocol raises concerns and is a poor choice for arguing / presenting protocol ideas.

Making Content Usable is an extremely complex document that includes multiple point of guidance at different scopes and levels of testability/measurability.

If you remove just the objectives with none of the design patterns and use those as heuristics for a heuristic review, then that new document may be a protocol, but saying that all the design patterns underneath those objectives should be put together as a protocols oversimplifies the contents. Some of the design patterns are already in WACG 2.0-2.2 as SC so treating them as a protocol would reduce the level that COGA guidance is included in WCAG rather than increasing it.

Parts of Making Content Usable could and likely should be treated as a protocol. COGA has a subgroup working on breaking out the clear language design pattern into different test types.  A plain language review is a potential protocol that could be used to support the Clear Language Design Pattern under the Use Clear and Understandable Content Objective. Other parts of the Clear Language design pattern are testable with high interrater reliability.  Please note that clear language is 3 levels down in the document structure which reenforces the complexity that is being oversimplified. Treating the entire document as a protocol potentially removes the need to treat the more objective and testable parts as guidance that would fall within the main  WCAG 3 structure.

Building on that, placing the majority of guidance for supporting people with cognitive disabilities into a section of WCAG 3 that won’t likely be in the most basic levels of conformance (whatever those end up looking like) continues the discrimination that is unintentionally baked into WCAG 2. We would like to make sure that  WCAG 3 avoids repeating the AAA situation all over again.

I hope that helps clarify and leads to a more productive way forward.

Kind regards,

Rachael


Rachael Bradley Montgomery, PhD
Digital Accessibility Architect
Library of Congress
Email: rmontgomery@loc.gov<mailto:rmontgomery@loc.gov>