- From: Kynn Bartlett <kynn-hwg@idyllmtn.com>
- Date: Sun, 25 Jul 1999 11:18:56 -0700
- To: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Cc: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, kynn@hwg.org
At 12:00 AM 7/22/1999 , Jason White wrote: >I agree with Charles that there are substantial reasons which favour >confining conformance claims to the categories defined in the document; >but this issue should at least be discussed further in the long term. Here's my take on it. We present a number of Guidelines, which are great. They are prioritized, which are great. They have abundant techniques, which is great. However, when it comes to implementation, the Guidelines as written only present three suggested plans for implemenation of these very valuable guidelines: Either: (a) Implement all priority one checkpoints, or (b) Implement all priority one and two checkpoints, or (c) Implement all checkpoints. It strikes me that none of these are reasonable implementation plans for any "real life" website. None are usable for the corporation, government agency, or educational organization who is seeking advice and guidance on creating an accessible web site. This is where we have our breakdown -- we don't give good implemenation advice. Without the single-A, double-AA, triple-AAA levels concept, we fall back to "must", "should", "may", which actually _is_ an acceptable, but loose, plan for implementation. Adding on the levels, however, moves us past "must", "should", and "may" and recommends an _implementation plan_ (or at least, something that will be taken as such) which is completely nonsensical. A rationally crafted implemenation plan by a company (org, school, etc.) will include checkpoints of all levels, depending on their ability, focus, time, and desires. Any good plan MUST include all priority one checkpoints, but may still remain accessible if only a subset of level two or three is included. However, the current "levels" system does _not_ encourage the creation of a rational implementation plan by companies and agencies, but instead encourages braindead implementation strictly along priority levels. <EM>THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS AND WILL HURT THE ACCESSIBILITY OF THE WEB IN THE LONG RUN.</EM> We do _not_ want to be encouraging blind obedience to "shoulds" and overlooking of "mays" -- we _want_ to encourage web site managers to take a serious look at the issues and create a web site accessibility policy that works _for them_. In summary: The "three levels of compliance" will be taken as implemention plans; all of them, by not encouraging thoughtful application of the WCAG, make very bad implemenation plans. We should not encourage braindead implementation; the levels of compliance are a threat to what we're trying to do here. -- Kynn Bartlett mailto:kynn@hwg.org President, HTML Writers Guild http://www.hwg.org/ AWARE Center Director http://aware.hwg.org/
Received on Sunday, 25 July 1999 14:22:30 UTC