Re: Please review: R2 proposal to supplement the current R1 proposal

[re-sent.  Mis-sent to Wendy alone the first time <my bad/>.  Jonathan said it
more clearly and compactly.  To the same end. -Al]

>R2:   We will try to express the technical requirements in language that 
>policy makers can understand, adopt, and use, but technical requirements 
>are not driven by policy; they are driven by the needs of users with 
>disabilities.
>

Better to go with the positive and get out of the need to use a 'but' at all. 
And go straight to 'user' without setting 'technical' up as an adversary of
'policy'.  Since meeting user needs is job 1, say that first, and state the
sense of R1 afterwards, because it is a subroutine in the sense of a constraint
or functional language.

An important point is that you are not ignoring policy, here; but setting
policy for the context of this document.    Our policy in deciding what to say
gives precedence to effectiveness in meeting user need over efficiency in
passing through the policy setting and dissemination channel.

<proposal class='paraphrase'>

First priority (in deciding what practices to recommend in this document) is
given to meeting user needs.

Web practices will be described in sufficient technical detail to assure
effectiveness in meeting user needs.

To the greatest extent possible while meeting this requirement, the description
will be made as clear and simple as possible to facilitate the implementation
of these recommendations both in policy and in practice.

Note that there is sometimes a tension between providing enough detail to make
the provisions readily implemented in practice and making the language of the
provisions terse enough to facilitate implementation in policy.  The layering
of the product into guidelines and techniques is intended to mitigate this
tension.

</proposal>

Al

At 03:33 PM 2002-04-16 , you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Charles commented to the wai-gl list, and Lisa Seeman agreed that the R1 
>statement ought to make it clear that while we try to make our deliverables 
>understandable and usable by policy makers, we will not let them drive our 
>decisions about technical requirements.
>
>Judy, Gregg, Jason, Charles and I have discussed the following 
>proposal.  We would like to give you all until this Friday (19 April) to 
>review.  If there are no objections, this will be incorporated into a new 
>draft of the Requirements and we will aim to publish to TR early next week. 
>We will also allow time for discussion at this week's telecon.
>
>We are proposing a new R2 to supplement the existing R1 proposal.
>
>R1: WCAG 2.0 deliverables should be more understandable and usable by a 
>wider audience than was anticipated for WCAG 1.0, including policy 
>makers.   While the WCAG WG does not set policy, harmonization of 
>accessibility requirements helps drive demand for supporting 
>implementations in Web applications; therefore it should be easy for policy 
>makers and individuals responsible for implementing policy  to understand, 
>cite and/or adopt WCAG 2.0 and related deliverables.
>
>R2:   We will try to express the technical requirements in language that 
>policy makers can understand, adopt, and use, but technical requirements 
>are not driven by policy; they are driven by the needs of users with 
>disabilities.
>
>-- 
>wendy a chisholm
>world wide web consortium
>web accessibility initiative
>seattle, wa usa
>/--
>

Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2002 14:26:01 UTC