Re: General Exception for Essential Purpose

At 09:41 AM 2000-10-27 -0400, Leonard R. Kasday wrote:
>
>At any rate, WCAG 1.0 had a guideline 11.4 on alternative accessible pages 
>that were allowed after the author made "best efforts".  If we import that 
>into WCAG 2.0, how will we word it?
>

AG::

The "after the author made 'best efforts'" part of that checkpoint is 

- unenforceably vague
- should be considered heuristic, i.e. not a part of the concrete verifiable
'normative' requirements of this checkpoint.

And furthermore,

- alternate pages can be done well enough so that they do not incur even a P3
violation.  They can add a P3-like benefit, as opposed to deficit in
usability.  [There are both plusses and minuses, potentially, from such a
structure.]

In other words we should not lay any blanket negative valuation or prohibition
on server-side diversity (a.k.a. alternate pages) _per se_.  This is cramping
the content provider's solution options in a way that is unnecessary and
unreasonable.

So in WCAG 2 we drop the perjorative tone toward sites with server-side
alternatives, and try to extract cleaner descriptions of the true
make-or-break
and major usability criteria.

HOWEVER, all this still comes with a major WARNING that the content provider
takes on the burden of ensuring that a) the user knows the alternatives that
are available b) the user can get there [into an interaction mode that works
for them] and c) it is all kept synchronously up to date.

Even if pre-composing a short list of alternatives that the server
understands,
the content should still be passed over the wire with residual flexibility. 
The author cannot pre-figure-out all the cases the users will engender. 

The content providers don't have to cover all user cases with a single
'universal' document or site version.  But they still have to be open to some
client or middleware manipulation of what they put in each of the server-side
alternatives.  A few tall poles do not a big tent make.  The poles have to be
integrated with a flexible fabric.

Al

Received on Friday, 27 October 2000 16:17:29 UTC