Re: Proposed ATAG Partial Credit (fwd: from Barry F.)

My concerns with this proposal are that: (1) the proposal may unnecessarily
  complicate the ATAG2.0 conformance model described in Section 3 of 
ATAG2.0 [1],
(2) the proposal may introduce another "dimension" of variability among 
"conforming" ATAG2.0
offerings and may lead to "interoperability" issues involving ATAG2.0 
products, and (3)
the proposal's seeming endorsement of partial credit "within" the ATAG2.0 
conformance model may
reduce incentive and motivation to achieve full conformance with a 
currently-specified ATAG2.0
level (A, AA, or AAA).

I believe that an offerer already has the capability to claim which ATAG2.0 
success criteria
  are supported for their authoring tool, on a criterion-by-criterion 
basis, but that such claims
should be kept separable from the currently-specified A, AA, or AAA levels 
of the ATAG2.0
conformance model.

QA SpecGL [2] does not (according to my investigation) mention "partial" 
conformance in
Guideline 1 ("Specifying Conformance"),  but does describe the use of an 
Implementation
Conformance Statement proforma (1.2 Good Practice B).   Perhaps this would
be of some use?

Thanks, and I apologize in advance if I have misunderstood the proposal..

Best wishes
Tim Boland NIST

[1]: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-ATAG20-20041122/#Conformance

[2]: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-qaframe-spec-20041122/

At 03:39 PM 4/8/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>From:   Barry Feigenbaum <feigenba@us.ibm.com>
>
>I brought this up at the Austin Face-to-face and again recently.
>
>As implementing all the ATAG 2.0 guidelines, even in a minimal way, may
>prove to be too expensive/time consuming for all tool vendors, we need a
>way for authoring tools to get credit for conformance to parts of ATAG
>without total conformance (i.e., get "partial credit"). This would
>encourage tool vendors to try to conform where they can without having
>to climb such a steep hill for the full breath of compliance. I propose
>that this be done based on individual guidelines (we don't want to get
>to granular at a formal conformance level).   The tool can claim support
>of ATAG in total at some level (A, AA, AAA) if it supports all
>guidelines at the matching level (all guidelines met at  the claimed
>level) and/or individual guidelines of ATAG (i.e., each ATAG guideline
>will be like a separate spec to conform to).
>
>IMHO many vendors will stress guideline 2, then guideline 1; both of
>which have great value to the industry.  Guidelines 3 & 4 will get less
>priority.
>
>Example A:
>Guideline                            Claimed Conformance Level
>                               (can use ATAG Guideline Conformance Icons)
>1 Tool accessible                                AA
>2 Produce accessible content                    AAA
>3 Support author                                  A
>4 Promote accessible solutions                   NC (nonconforming)
>
>The above tool could not claim ATAG 2.0 conformance but it could claim
>ATAG 2.0 GL1 and 2 with advanced conformance (IMHO still a pretty good
>achievement)
>
>
>Example B:
>Guideline                            Claimed Conformance Level
>                               (can use ATAG Guideline Conformance Icons)
>1 Tool accessible                                 A
>2 Produce accessible content                    AAA
>3 Support author                                  A
>4 Promote accessible solutions                    A
>
>The above tool could claim full ATAG 2.0 conformance and can also claim
>ATAG 2.0 GL 2 with AAA and 1, 3 and 4 with A conformance.
>
>Both of the above tools can use the ATAG 2.0 icons (we will need ones
>for each guideline) in tier product literature.
>
>Individual tools may also state that they support individual checkpoints
>or even individual success criteria on their website/literature, but
>this is not included in an AUWG sanctioned format.
>
>
>
>Barry A. Feigenbaum, Ph. D.
>Worldwide Accessibility Center - IBM Research
>www.ibm.com/able,
>w3.austin.ibm.com/~snsinfo
>voice 512-838-4763/tl678-4763
>fax 512-838-9367/0330
>cell 512-799-9182
>feigenba@us.ibm.com
>Mailstop 904/5F-021
>11400 Burnet Rd., Austin TX 78758
>
>W3C AUWG Representative
>IBM Club Representative
>IEB Member
>
>Sun Certified Java Programmer, Developer & Architect
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>
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>
>

Received on Monday, 11 April 2005 13:03:50 UTC