RE: CONFORMANCE: new sentence on testability, plus comments

I think this is a good idea.   I figured we would have this in the final
discussion of levels of conformance since it is a critical part.

 

This is something that we actually fudged a bit on in WCAG 1.0 I think.
We should address it as clearly as we can in 2.0.  

 

Gregg

------------------------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Ind Engr - Biomed - Trace,  Univ of Wis
gv@trace.wisc.edu

 

-----Original Message-----
From: john_slatin [mailto:john_slatin@forum.utexas.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 7:10 AM
To: 'GV@trace.wisc.edu'; john_slatin; 'WCAG (E-mail)'
Subject: RE: CONFORMANCE: new sentence on testability, plus comments

 

John here again.  Gregg writes

 ...  no matter what we do there will always be people who cannot use
the site.  Even if the site were rewritten specifically for that
individual, there are some who would not be able to comprehend or use
the site.    So the minimum will not be able to cover every technique
that would be needed by every person.    Higher levels will include
things that would make sites usable by more people, but never all.

 

John's response to Gregg's comment:

This is the first time I've read such an explicit statement about the
*limitations* of conformance.  I think it might be wise to include such
an acknowledgment.  This is partly a matter of being open about the
difficulties of aiming for full accessibility.  But it's also a way to
help people understand why it's important to go *beyond* minimum
conformance.  Without such a motivating statement, developers (or more
particularly the people who make the budgetary decisions) might be
inclined to believe that achieving Levels 2 and 3 (if there is a Level
3) is simply a matter of bragging rights rather than necessity for some
people.  We might want to take this issue into account in the "Benefits"
sections.  If minimum conformance to a specific checkpoint still
excludes people with specific disabilities, for example, then Level 2
might mean that the site is now minimally accessible to that group, at
the same time (maybe) that it becomes easier for people who benefited
from the minimum.  Does this work?

 

John

 

 

John also wrote

(2) The conformance statement says that Level 2 and Level 3 "build on"
the level of functionality achieved by meeting the minimum requirements,
thereby making content accessible to people who still wouldn't be able
to get to it if only the minimum requirements had been met, or making it
easier for people to use (instead of just barely accessible), etc., etc.
But for a number of the checkpoints, the only difference between
"Minimum" and Level 2 is that, at Level 2, the material has been
reviewed and the reviewer(s) believe(s) it meets the requirements.  This
is "going beyond" the minimum requirement in organizational/bureaucratic
terms, but it doesn't ensure that the developers have done anything more
than they did to meet the minimum requirement-so it may not affect the
quality of the user's experience.

 

 

 

Response:

Yes.  This does seem to be a problem.   Lets figure out the levels and
then revisit this.

 

 


Gregg

 

 

 

 

 

Gregg

------------------------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Ind Engr - Biomed - Trace,  Univ of Wis
gv@trace.wisc.edu