Re: General Exception for Essential Purpose

comments inline...

On Sun, 29 Oct 2000, Ian Jacobs wrote:

  "Leonard R. Kasday" wrote:
  > 
  > Ian, Kynn, Al
  > 
  > Thanks for all the detail on the 2.0 philosophy but I'm still not sure I
  > understand the essentials.  Would you indulge the following lapse into
  > math-ese.
  > 
  > Consider
  > 
  > the set of all user groups U1, U2, U3... with different sets of abilities
  > and disabilities.
  > 
  > and the guidelines UA and GL for user agents and web content.
  > 
  > 1. Is the goal of WAI to produce UA and GL guidelines such that if both are
  > followed in their entirety, than each user groups U1, U2, U3... will have
  > available maxium feasible access to all web sites?  Here "maxium feasible"
  > means the maxium that can be obtained with current knowledge and technology?
IJ  
  At first glance, yes. Users have needs, we try to write guidelines 
  to meet those needs, by assigning responsibilities to meet those 
  needs to different parties. It's up to us to choose the scope of those
  guidelines, how many problems in the real world to account for, etc.

CMN
Yes. It is the goal of W3C as a whole to produce specifications that will
allow anybody to use the web, and the specifications should combine to make
that work well. (as I understand it).

But I think it is also a goal of WAI to ensure that people can user the Web
as it exists, as well as the web of the future. So there are some extra
things that have to be taken into account.
   
LK
  > 2. And is it completely acceptable to fulfill this goal by providing each
  > of the user groups U1, U2, U3,.... with different versions of the site S1,
  > S2, S3... ?
IJ  
  Yes, but:
[snip]  
LK
  > Len
  > 
  > p.s.
  > Also, if this is the philosophy, I don't understand where Kynn's "minimally
  > accessible" fallback fits in.

CMN
Yes but. It is important to make sure that the set of solutions covers all
the sets of users.

The key points are
1. It is a requirement to provide a version that anyone can use
2. It is good to have optimised versions for user groups who have a
particular set of functionalities available.
3. If there is more than one version, it is a requirement that the method for
changing between them can be used by anyone.

An aside... 
Minimally accessible doesn't work for me as a description. Broadly accessible
is what I prefer. (So much for semantic niceties.)

the but in longer form...

Unfortunately the User groups U1, U2, U3, ... are a very large set. The
initial approach taken by WCAG, as I understand it, is to provide
requirements that will meet all the needs we know about (and think we can
serve).

However, for some groups, it is possible to provide a better solution. For
example, people who are completely blind will not, normally, have a need for
images, and they can be left out. Extra cues about navigating the page can be
included that are not required by people who can visually scan and process
the structure.

Where a web author is providing enhanced versions of a site for particular
target audiences (people who are Deaf, people who have a particular brand of
browser, people who use braille) to improve the usability and accessibility
of a site this is a good thing for accessibility as far as the target group
is concerned. But it does not necessarily provide "accessibility" as WAI
normally uses the term because it is not automatically true that the content
can be used by anyone regardless of disability.

Having a version of the content that can be used by anyone is still a
requirement. Users in a target group are normally going to prefer the
targetted form. But users may be in a different group sometimes (I switch
from iCab, a graphical browser, to the browser on my telephone, for example),
or may not be in a target group at all. For example a deaf blind user will
not get the same benefit from a site that uses audio to optimise presentation
of the information that a hearing blind user will get.

cheers

Charles McCN

Received on Monday, 30 October 2000 08:58:36 UTC