RE: Conclusions from Discussion today

Lisa and All,
I'm confused on this point.  I way that I understand what is being said here
is that we should only use accepted standards.  I can partly agree with
this.

However, I would like to review the way that new languages are used prior to
standards being accepted.  XML was used long before it was adopted.  WML had
at one time several versions and still does if I recall correctly, but only
one standard which portions of do not work well across the entire system.
Hey, that reminds me of browsers.

Many times technologies adopt something before standards are in place.  Some
of those technologies still use those archaic elements like the embed tag
and many others.  When we depracate a tag we should remove it from the list
entirely.  That way people can't say that it is a tag that can still be
used.

I had that particular situation come up in a class I was teaching yesterday.
When I expressed they should stop using FONT tags, the class got into an
uproar.  They stated that as long as the tag is still listed in the
standards it is okay to you.  Unfortunately, they have no idea what XHTML
is.

At any rate how far back do we support and how far forward do we support?  I
recall two weeks ago on the Telecon that it was stated that we should use
all the techniques in the WCAG standards even if technology has not caught
up yet.  If technology offers something that the W3C has not adopted yet,
should we support it in the WCAG standards?

Please advise.

Sincerely,
Lee Roberts
President/CEO
Rose Rock Design, Inc.
Building web sites accessible by EVERYONE
http://www.roserockdesign.com


-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org]On
Behalf Of Lisa Seeman
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:27 AM
To: 'GLWAI Guidelines WG (GL - WAI Guidelines WG)'
Subject: Re: Conclusions from Discussion today


Hmm,
 We are talking about this on the phone but I am sending this point to the
list anyway

We seem to have lost conform to W3 technologies or at least to widely
published, publicly available and used specifications.
If you develop for an obscure technology that is not supported by assistive
technology that the whole WCAG becomes ridicules.

Also as soon as technologies move outside the w3 space the work done by W3
to promote accessibility through RDF, the semantic web etc will become less
useful making that page less accessible.

I can point out this obvious issue as I do not work for the W3C, but now
that I have said it, Charles could probably elaborate.

Yes I know this is not a popular one

Oh well,

----- Original Message -----
From: "Gregg Vanderheiden" <GV@TRACE.WISC.EDU>
To: "'GLWAI Guidelines WG (GL - WAI Guidelines WG)'" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Cc: "'Ian Jacobs'" <ij@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2002 10:29 AM
Subject: FW: Conclusions from Discussion today


>
>
> Conclusions from Discussion yesterday's teleconf call....
>
> ------------------------
> 1)   4.1 should be made advisory because either[GV Start:] :
>     a) it means that you can't use any technologies that don't meet them
> all
> (which is not possible)
>   OR
> b) that you must use at least some technology that would allow you in
> the future to comply (which is always true - since you can serve
> alternate content
>   OR
> c) it means that you must comply with the guidelines -- which is
> circular.
>
> So it was felt it didn't make sense as a checkpoint -- but we did want
> to draw attention to the fact that selecting the technologies was
> important to making things accessible -- therefore it was made into an
> advisory.
>
> ------------------------
>  2) in the discussion it was pointed out that S-1 contained much
> important information in the regard, and was also not reflected in the
> guidelines.   The a new guideline (labeled checkpoint 4.S.1 for
> discussion was crafted after the meeting based on meeting discussions
> and Is posted separately.
>
> ------------------------
> 3)  Regarding 4.3
>
> a)  it was pointed out that "compatible with AT" was undefined.   What
> AT?  All AT?
> b)  what did "device-independent access to functionality"  mean exactly
>
> It was felt that 4.3 was captured in the second of its success criteria.
> A new version of it might look like
>
>
> Checkpoint 4.3   Design user interfaces to be accessible or to provide
> an accessible alternative.
>
> Success criteria
> 1) any applications with custom interfaces conform to at least Level A
> of UAAG 1.0. If the application cannot be made accessible, an
> alternative accessible solution is provided.
>
> 1) any applications with custom interfaces conform to [Part of?  All of
> ?] UAAG 1.0. If the application cannot be made accessible, an
> alternative accessible solution is provided.
>
> Issues:
> 1. we need to avoid circular references to WCAG that are in UAAG 1.0
> checkpoints 8.1 and 7.3. 2. Conformance to UAAG 1.0 [1]  is more than
> Level A, AA, or AAA.  We can define a conformance profile that might be
> based only on guideline 6, for example.  How this conformance claim
> would be made needs more work. 3. UAAG considers applets "content" and
> thus covered by WCAG.  This is another spot for a possible circular
> reference. [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG/conformance.html#Conformance
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Gregg
>
>
>
> -- ------------------------------
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
> Professor - Human Factors
> Dept of Ind. Engr. - U of Wis.
> Director - Trace R & D Center
> Gv@trace.wisc.edu <mailto:Gv@trace.wisc.edu>, <http://trace.wisc.edu/>
> FAX 608/262-8848
> For a list of our listserves send "lists" to listproc@trace.wisc.edu
> <mailto:listproc@trace.wisc.edu>
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 22 February 2002 09:12:01 UTC