WCAG meeting minutes, October 4, 2001

jw - Jason
jb - Judy
gv - Gregg
lgr - Loretta
as - Andi
tl - Tim Lacey
jm - Jo
gs - Gian Sampson-Wild


jw - reviewing list of BIG issues created at WG meeting in Seattle
jw - issues raised on list wrt: consensus items C5, C6, and G1
gv - C5 and C6 deal with allowing people to see impact of requirements by
disability yet not let them claim conformance based on this.
gv - concern raised by Graham Oliver that this gives people tool to
discriminate against particular disabilities
gv - Graham not attending call so difficult to resolve concern. Discomfort
with labeling of guidelines. More uncomfortable with "hooks".
gs - clients often ask for way to reduce guidelines. Often want to know
which disabilities are affected by particular requirements.
gv - C5 implies we provide information on who benefits from the
requirement.
gs - been asked which of PRI 1 guidelines are most important. Clients often
key in on vision impaired requirements. Need to be careful...
gv - is it useful to EO group to have statements of impact and methods of
extracting requirements by disability
jb - risk that if you modularize by disability, invites picking and
choosing. What is the question?
gv - C5 says we provide a way to see impact for disabilities but should not
be used for conformance
gv - C6  says we should provide "hooks" so that people can see guidelines
by disability but should not be used for conformance
jb - after WCAG 1.0 was published, confusion over disabilities covered by
guidelines, perception that they were for vision only. Information about
disabilities covered would be helpful.
gv - is there a lack of consensus on C6 (hooks)?
jw - how about an impact matrix?
gv - matrix doesn't give reasons why. impact statement can give more
information. matrix should have more information than just 'X"
jw - proposal - clarify who benefits from each checkpoint and summarize in
an impact matrix (gv has exact consensus statement)
gv - C6 appears to have lost consensus. (will send new proposal to list)
gv - G1 deals with writing the document as clearly and simply as is
appropriate for the content. Graham Oliver raised issue on the list that it
should be written as "clearly and simply." or "as clearly and simply as is
appropriate for the target audience."
jw - wonder whether he was trying to raise an issue with CP 3.3.
gv - propose that document should be "written clearly and simply".
jm - suggest change "document" to "documents". Should apply to everything
we write.
as - what was the issue that raised the need for this consensus statement?
gv - came out of the discussion about target audience.
<group agrees to "Our documents should be written clearly and simply with
links to definitions. We should go with the clearest and simplest language
that someone can propose as long as it is accurate."
gv cmn comments on consensus statements. thinks N3 is too vague but then
says that N3, N4, and N5 mean the same thing.
as - seems like n4 and n5 define what n3 is
gv - put bounds on it.
jw - think he is saying that they don't stand alone. Can't remove one
without removing all.
gv - on to remaining issues; author and user needs conflict, user and user
needs conflict
jw - reaction on mailing list indicates that meaning of these two are
unclear
gv - reads CMN comments:

In general we need to ensure that user needs are met, and we need to work
as
hard as we can to find ways of doing this that meet authors needs. We need
to
understand whether author needs are needs (communicating information) or
desires (having a site use a particular technology for demonstration, no
matter what the consequences). If they are desires, then it is acceptable
that they lose in a conflict, but where possible we should seek win-win
solutions to the problems. In many cases these exist.

gv - cmn gives recommendation if author's needs are desires but not if
author's needs are needs
gv - examples - author needs to pack lots of information on page, needs lot
of animation on page
jw - if there is a conflict of that sort, it may affect which checkpoint
someone decides to comply with or what level of conformance they can attain
but doesn't affect content of guidelines
jm - not sure it is our role to address that situation.
gv - what if we know of something that would make a page accessible but it
isn't practical to do that?
gv - example - before tables could be made accessible, there were cases
where a table had to be used.
lgr - scripting seems to fall into this class.
gv - using lynx does too. argue whether user needs to use lynx or just
wants to use lynx.
jw - have to provide an alternate form
jm - any cases where that won't work?
gv - picture of Mona Lisa, physics experiment that you perform. can provide
description but it is not equivalent.
jw - no but it is the best that you can achieve without having descriptions
appear interactively as people select certain objects
gv - where author and user needs conflict, an alternative needs to be
provided that is as close to content and function as is technically
possible
as - what about a distance learning application that has an interactive
whiteboard facility?
gv - has to provide a way for the speaker to provide text description of
what is being drawn on the whiteboard for presentations that are prepared
ahead of time. if live session, instructor has to describe it orally.
gv - people from industry may object to "technically possible" because of
expense
gv - alternative generally less expensive that original implementation. add
phrase about "practical"?
jw - if technically possible and hasn't been done, then don't conform.
gv - on to user and user needs conflict. cmn recommends we apply to every
normative requirement. can't make a general statement about it.
gv - propose cmn's wording: "User versus user needs is something we need to
look at on a case by case basis. But it is also a test we need to apply to
every normative requirement anyway - if this is done is some group being
cut out?"
gv - last issue is conformance
jw - wrote about it on the list a few days ago.
jw - need a proposal for how conformance would be defined.
lgr - what is the feedback on conformance scheme of WCAG 1?
gv summarizes jw commments as: 1. no credit for partial between levels; 2.
checkpoint by checkpoint conformance has been discussed;  3. cognitive
items all prevent access for someone so would all end up being priority 1
unless we redefine way we assign priorities
jw - Kynn Bartlett raised issue about reporting mechanism
lgr - are we planning to assign priorities to non-normative items?
jw - can't really answer until we have an idea about what priorities mean
w/in context of 2.0
gv - priority for who?
gv - in my work, moved away from priority and started using "type". type 1
- if don't do it, then everyone in that category can't do it. type 2 - if
don't do it, then some people in category can't do it. hard to distinguish
type 3. end up with setup tasks in type 3.
as - what do you mean by category?
gv - categories are by disability
gv - reviewed consensus issues wrt conformance
gv - may be that "A" is all normative things
gv - beyond "A", maybe you can pick and choose. but how do you get credit
for something that is non-normative
jb - could have 2 different levels that are normative, 3rd level that is
non-normative for people that are trying to target their sites for access
jb - conformance structure we have been using is self-declaration.
organizations that claim A+, or AA+
jb - more pre-defined options you can provide, the greater the chance that
organizations will select something that has meaning rather than have
complete chaos
gv - could have A+ or AA+ that is clickable. takes you to a statement about
what the + means
jw - could provide one or two standard ways of claiming conformance. State
that conformance claims can be made in other ways provided that the claim
is documented in an accessible way.
gv - maybe it would be useful to have a conformance claim document where
people can nominate conformance schemes
gv - gv and jw have each proposed an idea. need to write it up crisply and
send to gv
jw - little discussion on what should be the criteria for distinguishing
between the different levels.
gv - whenever we discuss this topic, begin with the proposals that have
been written down. debate solutions rather than the problem.
jm - idea of capturing conformance ideas in a document is a good one.
jw - also need proposals on how to define the criteria for the priorities

Andi
andisnow@us.ibm.com
IBM Accessibility Center - Special Needs Systems
(512) 838-9903, http://www.ibm.com/able
Internal Tie Line 678-9903, http://w3.austin.ibm.com/~snsinfo

Received on Wednesday, 10 October 2001 16:33:35 UTC