WCAG-capable proposal

Hi all,

On yesterday's call we continued the discussion of terms that might replace "Accessible Content (WCAG)", which WCAG-WG cautions us against using.

Ideas we have considered:
-------------------------

"WCAG-Conformant" - directly implies WCAG conformance, which requires only using technologies in "accessibility supported" ways - problematic for ATAG http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-au/2011JulSep/0061.html)

"WCAG-Conformant*" - note the asterisk. May still be confusing.

"potentially WCAG-conforming web content" - too wordy

"WCAG-capable" was suggested yesterday - for which I took an action to write the proposal (below).

Other ideas that I had while doing this action:
------------------------------------------------
"WCAG-Compatible" 
"Accessible*" - once again using the asterisk. 


Deciding which term to use:
===========================

First, let's look at the term being replaced:

accessible content (WCAG): Web content that meets the WCAG 2.0 success criteria (Level A, AA, or AAA).

If we really want to be exact, we might say something like:

WCAG-capable/compatible content: Web content that could potentially conform to WCAG 2.0 (to Level A, AA, or AAA) as follows:
-Conformance Level: the WCAG 2.0 " Conformance Level" requirement is met.
-Full Pages: if the content is one or more Web pages, the WCAG 2.0 "Full Pages" requirement is met.
-Complete Processes: if the content is a complete process, the WCAG 2.0 "Complete Processes" requirement is met.
-Only Accessibility-Supported Ways of Using Technologies: The WCAG 2.0 "Only Accessibility-Supported Ways of Using Technologies" requirement is assumed to be met.
-Non-Interference: the WCAG 2.0 "Non-Interference" Requirement is met.

But that's getting complicated, so maybe:

WCAG-capable/compatible content: Web content that could potentially conform to WCAG 2.0 by meeting the WCAG 2.0 success criteria (to Level A, AA, or AAA).
Note: This term refers to potential conformance rather than current conformance so the 
WCAG 2.0 Conformance Requirements are not required to be met.



Second, the term "Accessible [Web] Content" appears ~80 times in the document, so I will simply try to provide some representative examples.

(1) 
A.1.1.1 Web-Based Accessible (WCAG): Web-based authoring tool user interfaces meet the WCAG 2.0 success criteria. (Level A to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A success criteria; Level AA to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A and AA success criteria; Level AAA to meet all WCAG 2.0 success criteria)

Becomes:

A.1.1.1 Web-Based Accessible (WCAG): Web-based authoring tool user interfaces are WCAG-capable/compatible. (Level A, AA, or AAA as determined by WCAG 2.0)
-----
(2)
accessible templates (WCAG): Templates that can be filled in to create web content that meets the WCAG 2.0 success criteria (Level A, AA or AAA),... Note: Under these conditions, some templates will result in completely empty documents, which are considered accessible by default.

Becomes:

accessible templates (WCAG): Templates that can be filled in to create WCAG-capable/compatible content (Level A, AA or AAA),... Note: Under these conditions, some templates will result in completely empty documents, which are considered WCAG-capable/compatible by default.
-----
(3)
B.2.4.3 Author-Created Templates: If the authoring tool includes a template selection mechanism and allows authors to create new non-accessible templates (WCAG), then authors can enable the template selection mechanism to display distinctions between accessible and non-accessible templates that they create. (Level AA)
Note: The distinction can involve providing information for the accessible templates, the non-accessible templates or both.

Becomes:

B.2.4.3 Author-Created Templates: If the authoring tool includes a template selection mechanism and allows authors to create new templates that are not WCAG-compatible, then authors can enable the template selection mechanism to display distinctions between the WCAG-compatible and non-WCAG-compatible author-created templates. (Level AA)
Note: The distinction can involve providing information for the WCAG-compatible templates, the non-WCAG-compatible templates or both.




Cheers,
Jan




















-- 
(Mr) Jan Richards, M.Sc.
jrichards@ocad.ca | 416-977-6000 ext. 3957 | fax: 416-977-9844
Inclusive Design Research Centre (IDRC) | http://idrc.ocad.ca/
Faculty of Design | OCAD University

Received on Tuesday, 16 August 2011 21:18:46 UTC