Re: few more thoughts on ATAG 2.0

A few more thoughts on ATAG 2.0...

** Perceivable vs. Understandable
I see that ATAG 2.0 is using the WCAG 2.0 convention of Perceivable, Operable and Understandable.  So perceivable would mean to know that exists and understandable is to be able to extra meaning?  Maybe its just me but those two terms don't leave enough of a distinction in my head for me to be able to quickly extract distinct meaning from them.  If I sit down and think about it, I'll be able to see the difference between guideline A.1 and A.2.  My first reaction when seeing the use of the two words is, "huh?"

** Term - Content Type
The term content type seems to also be used pretty heavily through out the document.   It seems very jargonny and ranks up there on the "huh?" meter.  If the words data format or file format were used, i don't think I would have to pause and think about it.

** Relative Priority
I have also been trying to better understand the idea of relative priority.  

For example, it says  "B.2.3 Assist authors in repairing accessibility problems. [Relative Priority]"

So lets say I was shooting for the content I'm producing to be WCAG Level A.  I would read the previous checkpoint as "B.2.3 Assist authors in repairing accessibility problems (up to WCAG Priority 1)."  

Is this an accurate understanding of relative priority?  Relative priority means that you're relative to what the conformance level of WCAG you're shooting for.

** ATAG 2.0 Quick Reference?? (Build Your Own ATAG)
I think one thing that would help to pave my way to better understanding ATAG 2.0 is if we had a quick reference kind of like we do for WCAG 2.0. [1]  It would allow me to build my own ATAG 2.0 based on what my needs were.  This would help to avoid all of this relative priority and is it web-based/not web-based confusion.

I would be able to plug-in whether or not the authoring tool user interface was web-based or not and what level of WCAG I was shooting for and it would spit out and easy to understand version of the guidelines that I could just use.  I wouldn't have to try to infer meaning about what is applicable and whats not.
[1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/Overview.php 


** B.2.6 - Provide the author with a summary of accessibility status. [Priority 3]
Are we essentially saying that a good authoring tool will also have an evaluation tool as a part of it?

** B.3.4 Ensure that features of the authoring tool that support the production of accessible content are configurable. [Priority 3]
Is this saying that the features of the authoring tool should be configurable?  If so, then isn't that covered pretty well by A.2.2  which says, "For the authoring tool user interface, ensure author configurable access to selectable items"? [2]

[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/#check-tool-configurable





******************
Justin Thorp
US Library of Congress
Web Services - Office of Strategic Initiatives
e - juth@loc.gov
p - 202/707-9541

>>> "Justin Thorp" <juth@loc.gov> 12/28/06 10:28 AM >>>

Friends,

I hope that you are all having a wonderful end of 2006.  Last night I sat down with the latest working draft of ATAG 2.0 (http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/) and a big cup of coffee. 

* My general high level thoughts...

When reading it, I was looking for what could I potentially take to a group of web application developers who were going to write a CMS or blogging tool (which are by definition authoring tools.)  

After reading about 20 pages, the gist seemed to be if the authoring tool is web-based then the user interface should be WCAG-compliant and the content that is produced should be WCAG-compliant.  Those two things would get you 90% of the way to where you should be. 

Is that an accurate take away?  

If I was a cms developer and just reading it with fresh eyes, I don't know if I would be able to boil it down that easily.  

* Section 1.2 Role of Authoring Tools in Web Accessibility
Other then the first full paragraph, I am not sure what any of it has to do with the role of authoring tools in web accessibility.  It is all good material.  It just doesn't seem to fit.  I would expect that this section would be like the authoring tool portion of the components of web accessibility document.

*  Section 1.3 Relationship to WCAG
Is the need to refer to both versions of WCAG because ATAG 2.0 might come out before WCAG 2.0?  Not being version specific seems like it would add another level of complexity to an already complex document.

The idea of content type-specific WCAG benchmark document (a mouthful to say) is introduced.  How is this different from a techniques document?

* Section 2.1 Conformance Model
In the checkpoint priorities section it refers to Significance in Part A and Part B.  I'm assuming this is referring to how the guidelines are split into Part A. Vs. Part B.  The concept that the guidelines are split into Part A and Part B hasn't been touched on yet, except for in the table of contents.  For someone reading the document from beginning to end, they might be confused.

In priority 2 the word difficult is used to describe the experience of using an authoring tool.  In priority 3 the word inefficient is used.  Is there that much of a semantic difference between the two for people to right off understand the difference?  Can something be inefficient to use and difficult?

* Section 2.2 Conformance Claim
Could we get an example of what some different conformance claims looked like?

The fourth point asks for a description of how the normative success criteria were met for each of the checkpoints that were required.  Just seems like that is a lot to ask for.  I could see an authoring tool developer thinking, "I just made my app atag compliant and now I have to write an essay on how I did it?"

There is a whole page worth of material on Content Type-Specific WCAG Benchmarks.  The whole concept furrows my brow.  Regardless, could this whole section be put into a separate document and just a link be made to it?  It doesn't seem to be an ATAG specific concept.

* The Guidelines - Part A
Checkpoint A.1.4 (http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/#check-tool-sep-display-prefs)  doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.  If I'm going to know how I should fix a problem, I need to more so understand what the problem is.

Checkpoint A.1.5 (http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/#check-tool-sep-presentation) the success criteria uses the idea "semantic description of the presentation."  I'm not really sure what the means.

This is about as far as I got for now.  Hopefully able to get through the rest of it tonight.

Cheers,
Justin




******************
Justin Thorp
US Library of Congress
Web Services - Office of Strategic Initiatives
e - juth@loc.gov 
p - 202/707-9541

>>> Shawn Henry <shawn@w3.org> 12/21/06 4:05 PM >>>

EOWG,

A Working Draft of ATAG is available for review. Note that this is likely the last draft before a second Last Call Working Draft, and therefore now is an important time to submit comments.

We will discuss ATAG comments at our next EOWG teleconference on Friday 5 January 2007. Here are links to facilitate your review:
* Call for Review e-mail: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2006OctDec/0292.html 
* ATAG Overview: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/atag.php 
* ATAG Working Draft: http://www.w3.org/TR/ATAG20/ 

Specifically, EOWG should focus on:
- Is the ATAG 2.0 Working Draft understandable? Please consider the Abstract, Status, Introduction, and Conformance sections separately.
- Are the guidelines and success criteria clear?

Please send initial comments, issues, or questions to the EOWG mailing list anytime in the next 2 weeks.

Regards,
~Shawn & Judy

Received on Friday, 29 December 2006 14:48:57 UTC