Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Accessibility conformance Testing (ACT) Rules Format 1.1 (Issue #977)

matatk left a comment (w3ctag/design-reviews#977)

Thanks for your detailed and helpful reply @daniel-montalvo - this gives us a clear picture of the goals, and this gives rise to some things we'd like you to consider.

As the rules are implementations of the spec (the rules format) it's important that the format be made sufficiently precise such that the rules themselves can be automatically checked against the format. We imagine a linting program would be very helpful to those in the community writing the rules. Here are a few examples (which are not exhaustive) as to how that could be achieved:

* Prescribing a single format in which the rules be written would simplify the process of checking them, and mean probably only one linting program would need to be written.

* Here are some examples of things that would need to be tightened up in the spec in order to make automated linting possible:

  1. The exact names for section headings.

  2. Possibly also the ordering for section headings (though this would be more to keep output consistent for readers).

  3. Specifying the exact strings to use as enum values. E.g. for [rule types](https://w3c.github.io/wcag-act/act-rules-format.html#rule-type) what would be the exact text string that indicates the rule is either atomic or composite?

  4. Specifying the exact structure - and permitted values - of the [accessibility requirements mapping](https://w3c.github.io/wcag-act/act-rules-format.html#accessibility-requirements-mapping) - i.e. how are the 5 fields identified, and what are the allowed values (exact text strings)?

  5. Could expectations ([example expectations section](https://github.com/w3c/wcag-act-rules/blob/6e8ff64e66067a7e2304b9e051055151d9be6493/content/rules/73f2c2/index.md?plain=1#L40-L48)) be more tightly specified, such that they could be (in future) loaded into an automated test framework? It seems that this would be possible, and could have significant benefits later on.

Your explanation as to why you are not pursuing REC track for the rules themselves makes sense. You could always pursue it later if it does make sense for the group.

Regarding the possibility of integrating the rules into general testing tools later, including WPT, we're pleased that you're exploring this. Let us know if we can help.

We hope this helps clarify things - we are keen to hear your thoughts, and provide any further clarification or advice that we can on this, so we will keep this thread open.

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