Re: Conformance

Seems to me that one difference is that conformance would be "written in 
stone" - the tasks to "conform" are those which make the greatest 
differences to the largest groups of disabled people and which are unlikely 
to change in the future. Reporting is best for accommodating smaller, more 
specific groups and for addressing situations that will change as the 
technology develops. Whether we use conformance or reporting, we must be 
certain that the baseline includes all the major groups  of disabled folks, 
not just those who use unique hardware or software. (the major weakness in 
WCAG 1.0) ...

                                         Anne



At 02:36 AM 10/1/01 -0700, Kynn Bartlett wrote:
>Do we need a conformance mechanism or do we need a reporting mechanism?
>The two are very similar but are very different.  A "conformance
>mechanism" has the concept that "to be compliant with this document
>you must meet certain criteria", while a "reporting mechanism" is
>more about saying "this <whatever> has met these criteria."
>
>To me, a "conformance mechanism" in this context sounds like policy --
>and we are not writing policy on how our guidelines should be used,
>we are leaving that up to the policy-makers.  (This is a problem with
>WCAG 1.0, a de facto policy built into the guideline.)  Rather we
>should be providing the policy-makers with the appropriate tools and
>modularization to set their own policies as they feel appropriate.
>(These policy-makers may be personal users, corporate policymakers,
>or national/international lawmakers.)

Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 06:32:36 UTC