- From: Charles McCathieNevile <charles@w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 12:40:39 -0400 (EDT)
- To: Jon Gunderson <jongund@staff.uiuc.edu>
- cc: w3c-wai-au@w3.org
This has been discussed at length in the group. The most recent occasion it was brought up was the Working group meeting on 1 September, where the suggestion of doing something similar (providing a vconformance that did not require meeting the checkpoints in what is now guideline 7) was rejected. Although this has been a difficult issue for the group, I think a fair summary of the working consensus is that a tool which conforms to the Accessibility Guidelines must be accessible, and until that goal is reached the tool in question is merely good for some aspects of accessibility (in the same way that a tool which is accessible in itself, but leads the author to produce inaccessible content, or prevents the author from producing accessible content, should not be able to claim conformance). Regards Charles McCN On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Jon Gunderson wrote: You only have one type of conformance listed in the document. I know there was discussion a few months ago related to the issues of the authoring tool being accessible and producing accessible content. It was brought to the attention of the coordination group. I was wondering if there was any discussion about having two types of conformance, instead of the one listed in the last call document? Conformance types I was thinking of: 1. Conformance in creating accessible web content 2. Conformance for an accessible interface and compatibility with assistive technology It seems to me that two levels would give developers more managable goals to target their accessibility resources and highlight to consumers the level and type of accessibility of authoring tools as developers increase the accessibility of their product. I checked the AU issue list to see how it was resolved, but there was no reference to when or how the issue was resolved. Jon Jon Gunderson, Ph.D., ATP Coordinator of Assistive Communication and Information Technology Chair, W3C WAI User Agent Working Group Division of Rehabilitation - Education Services University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign 1207 S. Oak Street Champaign, IL 61820 Voice: 217-244-5870 Fax: 217-333-0248 E-mail: jongund@uiuc.edu WWW: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~jongund http://www.w3.org/wai/ua http://www.als.uiuc.edu/InfoTechAccess --Charles McCathieNevile mailto:charles@w3.org phone: +1 617 258 0992 http://www.w3.org/People/Charles W3C Web Accessibility Initiative http://www.w3.org/WAI MIT/LCS - 545 Technology sq., Cambridge MA, 02139, USA
Received on Tuesday, 21 September 1999 12:40:41 UTC