A less drastic scenario

Last week I sketched out a scenario in which ATAG would be split into two 
separate guidelines documents:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2005JanMar/0043.html

The feeling in the group appears to be that this is too drastic (I agree) and 
leaves the way open for developers to comply with only one or the other parts. 
On the other hand, there was some positive reaction to some of the other 
aspcets of the scenario (conformance scheme simplification, etc.). Therefore, 
I was asked to sketch out another scenario for how the split might look INSIDE 
the ATAG document. Here is how it might look:

• There would be a single ATAG document (as there is now)
• It would have two sections of requirements (1) an Accessible Authoring 
Interface section and (2) a Support for Accessible Output section:

(1) Accessible Authoring Interface section
• This could have the requirements currently in Guideline 1 (with the key 
references to ISO16071 for non-Web based tools and WCAG for Web-based tools)
• OR this could be the kind of layered requirement that was in the earlier 
scenario:
(a) the tool must meet the current checkpoints 1.2 to 1.5.
(b) any user agent interface functionality in the tool must conform to UAAG
(c) any Web-based components must conform to WCAG (the developer has choice of 
WCAG version)
(d) functionality that slips through these requirements might be required to 
meet the requirements of at least one published guideline (e.g. IBM 
Java Accessibility Guideline), specification (e.g. ISO16071) or legislative 
(e.g. Section 508, etc.) document (developer choice) with special attention to 
interface components that are not covered by (1), (2) or (3), above]

• HOWEVER, there are QA implications to this (as Tim B. has pointed out), so 
instead it may be possible to add some additional requirements to (a) that 
extend UAAG and WCAG to the extent necessary to avoid having to rely on (d).
• In terms, of a conformance scheme for this section, we might actually want 
to consider a single minimal level of conformance.


(2) Support for Accessible Output section
• Composed of what is currently Guidelines 2, 3, and 4.
• Four priority levels unchanged: P1,P2,P3, Relative Priority (to WCAG)


The group is still discussing how the overall conformance level mechanism for 
the document (currently single-A, double-A, triple-A) might take the two 
sections into account.


-- 
Jan Richards, User Interface Design Specialist 
Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC), University of Toronto 

  Email: jan.richards@utoronto.ca 
  Web:   http://jan.atrc.utoronto.ca
  Phone: 416-946-7060 
  Fax:   416-971-2896

Received on Tuesday, 22 February 2005 01:52:00 UTC