Re: [DRAFT-2-] EOWG's replies to WCAG WG resolutions of EOWG comments on May 2007 Draft of WCAG 2.0

See replies below.

Judy Brewer wrote:
> 
> Hi Shawn & All,
> 
> Looking good. Sorry that I was not able to join you for the discussion 
> Friday morning. My only follow-up comments are on:
> 
> - Comment 21: semantics conveyed through presentation:
> I believe that our original comment was that the intent of the provision 
> was not clear. It now appears that our comment is that we disagree with 
> the intent of the provision now that is has been clarified, though 
> perhaps I misunderstanding the new comment as written below. I think 
> that it is important to maintain a consistent EOWG role of commenting on 
> the understandability of the provision rather than the technical merits 
> of the provision, though EOWG participants are free to comment on the 
> technical merits. Would it be possible to rephrase this along the 
> following lines: "If the intent of the provision is XYZ as you have 
> explained to us, we suggest rephrasing this for greater 
> understandability as follows: "...." Please note though that, given this 
> clarified meaning of the provision, several EOWG participants now 
> disagree with this provision, and will send their comments separately."

I tweaked EOWG's reply to clarify our concern with the mis-match between the SC and the sufficient techniques, and thus the understandability of the applicability of the SC:
"
EOWG reply to Comment 21 semantics conveyed through presentation?:
We debated the scope of SC 1.3.1 and what is meant by "information". There was some concern that the wording in the SC is more broad than the requirements of the sufficient techniques. All of the sufficient techniques deal with structure, and perhaps what one might call relationships. And none of the sufficient techniques address information other than structure or relationships. Therefore, it was not clear what other "Information" (a very broad term) is covered with this SC. This SC seems to cover only Structure and relationships...

Some in EOWG had specific use cases where we couldn't tell the applicability of this SC. They will submit those separately. [ACTION: Liam & Wayne]
"

NOTE to *Liam*, *Wayne* and others: I leave it to you for further reply with examples for above, and/or with your separate comments about the "technical merits of the SC" as Judy mentions.

> and...
> 
> - Comment 23: Please clarify ("mechanism"):
> On this one I believe that, unless we specifically say that it is 
> *inadequate* to have to look up both the glossary and the Understanding 
> examples in order to have an idea what this is referring to, we will 
> continue to get the same response we've been getting from them:
> 
>> We believe that the definition of mechanism in the glossary and the
>> explanation and examples in Understanding Success Criterion 3.1.4 are
>> sufficient to understand what kinds of mechanisms might satisfy this
>> success criterion.
> 
> In other words, rather than just saying "We still have difficulty with 
> this one" I think we should say something like "We believe that this 
> success criteria is less understandable when read on its own than many 
> of the other success criteria, and -- regardless of whatever information 
> may be available in the glossary and Understanding document -- would 
> benefit from clarification of the provision itself. (Otherwise it is at 
> risk for being ignored, or rewritten by people adopting these guidelines 
> in a way that might contribute to fragmentation.) For instance, it could 
> be reworded as follows: ___________"

Rewording to something along the lines of:
"
EOWG still finds this SC unnecessarily difficult to understand; the definition adds confusion and complication, and does not clarify the SC.

EOWG strongly suggests simplifying SC 3.1.4 to: "The expanded form or meaning of abbreviations is available." or "The expanded form or meaning of abbreviations is available to users."

"A mechanism for finding" seems unnecessary -- if it's not findable, it's not *available* to users. Indeed, the sufficient techniques clarify the different ways that abbreviations can be made available to users.
"

> Perhaps the parenthetical sentence should be left out, unless last 
> Friday's discussion specifically covered that ground.

Right, that was not mentioned at all in last Friday's discussion.
 
> I've left in the original text of our comment #21 and #23 text below for 
> reference.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Judy
> 
> 
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>> Comment 21: semantics conveyed through presentation?
>>> Source: 
>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0408.html 
>>>
>>> (Issue ID: 2291)
>>>
>>> 19. [SC 1.3.1] Most of us had no idea what this meant, and the few 
>>> who did
>>> had difficulty explaining what the practical implications of this 
>>> would be
>>> for content development. Do you mean "semantics conveyed through
>>> presentation?" Or is it the semantics about the relation between 
>>> objects?
>>> Either one of these, or both, would be more understandable.
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------
>>> Response from Working Group:
>>> ---------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> This success criterion speaks both to semantics conveyed through
>>> presentation, and semantics about relationships between objects. The
>>> wording has been carefully worked out to encompass this without being
>>> overly prescriptive. The Working Group did not arrive at alternate
>>> language that is more clear. The Understanding document provides more
>>> detail and examples to clarify the scope of this success criterion.
>>
>> EOWG reply to Comment 21 semantics conveyed through presentation?:
>> We debated the scope of SC 1.3.1 and what is meant by "information". 
>> There was some concern that this is too broad.
>>
>> Additionally, we note that all of the sufficient techniques deal with 
>> structure, and perhaps what one might call relationships. And none of 
>> the sufficient techniques address information other than structure or 
>> relationships. Therefore, some people were uncomfortable including 
>> "Information" in the SC. Perhaps this SC should be 1.3.1 Structure and 
>> Relationships: Structure and relationships...
>>
>> We came up with some specific use cases where we couldn't tell the 
>> applicability of this SC, and will send those to you as soon as 
>> possible. [ACTION: Liam & Wayne]
>>
>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>> Comment 23: Please clarify
>>> Source: 
>>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0408.html 
>>>
>>> (Issue ID: 2293)
>>> ----------------------------
>>> Original Comment:
>>> ----------------------------
>>>
>>> 21. [SC 3.1.4] We debated this but could not agree on a common
>>> interpretation. Please clarify.
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------
>>> Response from Working Group:
>>> ---------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> We believe that the definition of mechanism in the glossary and the
>>> explanation and examples in Understanding Success Criterion 3.1.4 are
>>> sufficient to understand what kinds of mechanisms might satisfy this
>>> success criterion. "Mechanism" covers both author-supplied
>>> functionality and user-agent or assistive-technology supplied
>>> functionality.
>>
>> EOWG reply on Comment 23 Please clarify SC 3.1.4:
>> We still have difficulty with this one. Can SC 3.1.4 be simplified to: 
>> "The expanded form or meaning of abbreviations is available." ?
>>
>> For background, see 
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-eo/2007OctDec/0078.html 
>> and http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-eo/2007OctDec/0084.html
>>
>> ###
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Shawn Lawton Henry, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
about: http://www.w3.org/People/Shawn/
phone: +1-617-395-7664
e-mail: shawn@w3.org

Received on Monday, 19 November 2007 23:33:46 UTC