conformance to functionality classes Re: Proposals: Priority and Conformance schemes

If this proposal is to be defensible then it must be possible to identify who
gains and who is not supported by each possible combination.

It also concerns me that there is a division of conformance based on serving
different groups of people - in other words that it is possible that it will
be possible to claim "WAI conformance" for a document that is comprehensible
to almost anyone but relies on images, sounds, and movies to get a message
across, without providing any kind of textual equivalent. (There are other
possible combinations which would lead to paralell situations - this is just
one example)

I think this is likely cause problems with the way people understand what the
value of WCAG is.

Charles McCN

On Fri, 7 Sep 2001, Jason White wrote:

[snip]
  Disclaimer: I am not necessarily advocating these solution. Instead, I
  am trying to transform various suggestions which have been raised on
  this mailing list, into specific proposals, the merits of which can
  then be debated more easily.

  General structure of the conformance scheme:

[snip]
  Next come the definitions of the conformance classes. For each
  conformance class, the conformance claim must name the class and list
  the checkpoints which are claimed to have been met. This list must
  include all "essential" checkpoints in the particular class (see
  below); otherwise the conformance claim is invalid (this can be
  checked automatically). The checkpoints in each class are divided into
  two categories, "essential" and "recommended". These take the place of
  the WCAG 1.0 priority scheme. A checkpoint within a particular class
  is essential if failure to satisfy it will render the content
  inaccessible to identifiable groups of users whose needs are addressed
  by the checkpoint.

  Conformance class 1, Device and modality independence:

  Essential: checkpoints 1.1, 1.2, 1.5 and 4.1.

  Recommended: checkpoints 1.3, 1.4, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4.

  Conformance class 2, Interaction and navigation:

  Essential: Checkpoints 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7.

  Recommended: checkpoints 2.1 and 2.2.

[note snipped]
  Conformance class 3, Comprehension:

  Essential: checkpoints 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5.

  Recommended: checkpoints 3.1 and 3.2.

[snip]

Received on Saturday, 8 September 2001 17:56:50 UTC