RE: Conformance use-cases

Hi Jan,

I think that's a good approach in general, although I think it is worth trying with just the full and component levels. Taking a fresh look, the partial component level should cover the A/B situations, shouldn't it?  

More generally:
For web content you test the web page/interface that the end-user encounters. It doesn't matter what back-end (or mashup) the site uses, it is what the user encounters that is tested.

For web authoring we need to test the interface(s) that the author uses to create content, and part of that test is on the web content that is produced.

What produces web content can be complex, and we should not try and predict exactly what that is. For me the key actor is the 'provider' of the interface that authors use.

I would like to make sure tool makers are encouraged to create a document that states:
- Which ATAG SCs they meet.
- Which SCs they do not try to implement (and of those, which can be met with a 3rd party tool).
- Which SCs are dependant on how the tool is implemented (with notes).

BUT, it is then the provider of the final authoring interface who can create a full conformance claim. (Interface, workflow, solution, or whatever we call it.) 

In the simple cases (1 & 6) the tool creator is the provider, so it is straightforward and they could make a full claim.

For the other cases, the tool makers would be making a partial (component?) claim. We should try to avoid a pass/fail mentality on partial claims.

Then, someone creating a CMS service that integrates other tools (case 2) can see what each provides, and make a full claim for their service.
Someone creating service based solution (case 4) can pick a range of tools that allow them to create a solution that can make a full claim.

However, I don't think it is really possible to make a full claim until you have a complete (set of) tool(s) that an author would use. Somebody could easily mash together a set of accessible tools and loose all semblance of accessibility.

That does make it tricky for desktop products (case 3) aimed at end-users that do not make a full claim though, any ideas for that scenario? 

Kind regards,

-Alastair

PS. I don't think that referring to IP is going to help. For example, who would make a claim for open source software like Drupal?

Received on Monday, 7 November 2011 22:08:18 UTC