Concerns and Comments on WCAG 2.0

Hello all,
While reading the different WCAG 2.0 documents and discussing them with others here, we came up on some comments summarising our concerns. 
I'm not sure they are already included in the list of EOWG comments. Two of them have been adressed during the teleconference today. 
1. In the document containing the guidelines at <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/guidelines.html>: 
The four principles are not so easy to understand and their wording is difficult to localise. A short sentence explaining what each principle means would be helpful. If this exist somewhere in the WCAG set of documents, this should be made more obvious. 
Suggestion: either write a sentence after each principle title. Or: link to a definition in the glossary, or tell readers where to find more details on those four principles. 
This would help readers to really understand those principles and ensure that they are translated correctly. 

2. In the conformance document at <http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/conformance.html>: 
The changes between WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 should be explained in a simple manner. It is important to let the reader know how to review a web site and how to validate the criteria. Coming from the tripple choice "yes, no, not applicable" in WCAG 1.0 to "right or false" in WCAG 2.0. The concept of validating one criteria concerning a technology that has not been used is confusing and should be explained. 

3. The baseline concept in the conformance section: 
This concept is really difficult to understand and to explain. 
We understand that a site developper is free to define a baseline according to technologies that are only supported by the latest versions of user agents. We fear that Internet users who cannot use the latest versions will then be excluded from accessing the web site. 
While discussing the consequences of a set of technologies used in a baseline we cannot agree on the consequences that the choice of a baseline will have on the user. The exsamples given to illustrate the concept of baseline are not clear enough. 

4. In defining the scope of a Web site (in the conformance section):
WCAG 2.0 allows the Web site owner to define the scope of the site that should conform to WCAG 2.0. 
It means, for example, that the developper of a bank or supermarket Web site can make the information pages of this site conformant to WCAG 2.0. He may be able to exclude the pages (or web units) belonging to the purchase of goods on the site or to the clients' account management services. That means, that some people will still be excluded from accessing those services. 
This question of scope is really a concern for us. 

These were the concerns we had at BrailleNet. I don't know if you want to have all of them integrated in EOWG comments, but I wanted to share these concerns with the list. 

Best regards
Sylvie

Received on Friday, 16 June 2006 14:56:53 UTC