- From: Kelly Ford <kelly@kellford.com>
- Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 08:03:46 -0800
- To: <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <002801c2c879$41faaae0$1e02a8c0@wingroup.windeploy.ntdev.microsoft.com>
Hi All,
Apologies if this has been addressed in earlier discussions. But in reading through this draft one thing jumped out at me.
***Begin excerpt***
Historical and Third Party Copyrighted Materials
Materials which were not developed by or for the entity sponsoring the site and whose development was not under the control of the entity sponsoring the
site are not required to meet these guidelines in order for a site to meet the guidelines. These items would be considered commodities or products delivered
by the site rather than being part of the site.
***End Excerpt***
Would a site wanting to claim some level of W3C conformance that had such content have to call out which items fit this category? For example what if I have an investment site that uses a stock research tool that is actually copyrighted and developed by a third party? The page hosting this tool might comply with all W3C items but the tool itself might not. The end user should have an easy way to know this ahead of time in my opinion.
This could also be true say of a multimedia site offering films for download. The process of downloading and navigating might conform to W3C but the films themselves might not. As an end user I'd want to know this distinction if I read that the site/page complied with W3C.
----- Original Message -----
From: Gregg Vanderheiden
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 7:28 AM
Subject: Conformance Claims and Logo
Hi all,
I took an action item to redo the conformance section and incorporate recent discussions as well as propose a way out of some issues that were identified.
Below is my attempt to do so. (One week EARLY!)
I tried to make the Level descriptions accurate, rather than sounding nice. It is tricky.
(thanks Ben and Jason for input on this)
Comments please.
Gregg
----------------------
Conformance
WCAG 2.0 provides three levels of conformance for each of its 21 checkpoints.
MINIMUM LEVEL. - includes success criteria for the checkpoint that address key problems and are applicable across the broad range of Web content and sites. Conformance at this level will substantially overcome the barriers for many people with disabilities, but there will be people with disabilities who will still not be able to access the content. No claim of conformance can be made unless the minimum level of conformance is achieved for all checkpoints.
LEVEL 2 - includes additional success criteria that increase the accessibility of Web content, but that are more difficult to implement on Web content in general or on specific types of content.
LEVEL 3 - represents the highest level of conformance in WCAG 2.0. It includes success criteria that may be very difficult as well as criteria that may not be possible at all for some types of content or some Web architectures.
Conformance Claims
The rules regarding conformance claims are as follows:
1.. No conformance claim of any type may be made unless all MINIMUM Level success criteria have been met for all checkpoints in WCAG 2.0.
2.. If all of the checkpoints have been met hat the MINIMUM success criteria Level, but only some of the criteria for Level 2 have been met, then a conformance claim at "LEVEL 1+" can be made.
3.. If all success criteria (for all checkpoints) are met at the MINIMUM Level and Level 2, then a claim conformance at "Level 2" can be made.
4.. If all of the success criteria for (for all checkpoints) are met at the MINIMUM and Level 2, as well as some, but not all of the criteria for Level 3, then a conformance claim can be made at "Level 2+".
5.. If all success criteria for all Levels have been met, then a conformance claim at "Level 3" can be made.
All conformance claims must include (at minimum):
1.. The version of the guidelines to which a conformance claim is made and the URI of the guidelines document.
2.. The scope of the conformance claim (pages, portions of the site, types of content etc. addressed by the claim)
3.. The level at which conformance is claimed.
4.. The date the conformance claim was made.
For conformance claims of Level 1+ and Level 2+, it is helpful and recommended (but not required) that sites report specifically which criteria they have met within each of the guidelines and checkpoints. Techniques for specifying which success criteria beyond Minimal have been met can be found in the WCAG 2.0 Techniques document for the specific technology(s) you are using.
[REVIEWER'S NOTE: there is ongoing discussion regarding whether claims of 1+ and 2+ must have details about what beyond Level1 has been done -- and for what parts of the content it is true (if a general claim is made).]
WCAG 1.0 Compliant Sites
Sites which are WCAG 1.0 compliant may want to use qualified conformance statement as they begin to adopt 2.0. A statement that materials that are created or updated before a certain date are 1.0 compliant and materials after that date are 2.0 compliant, for example, could be used to capitalize on past accessibility efforts while shifting toward the newer more technology independent WCAG 2.0 guidelines.
Use of the WCAG 2.0 Logo
Whole sites which meet the WCAG 2.0 at the Minimum, level 2 or level 3 can use the WCAG 2.0 logo-icon with the appropriate level.
Sites that have a mixed level of conformance can use the WCAG 2.0 "mixed" logo on their home page as long as all sections meet the Minimum level or WCAG 1.0- Level A. In the latter case, both WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 logos should be used along with a listing of those sections which do not meet the WCAG 2.0 Minimal but do meet WCAG 1.- Level A. These sections should not provide core functionality for the site.
Information about proper use of the logo is located at http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG2-Conformance
[REVIEWER'S NOTE: that it is not required that they use the logo, so the methods for using the logo would not appear in the checklist, except if there was statement that went, "If the logo is used, the following have been complied with."]
Historical and Third Party Copyrighted Materials
Materials which were not developed by or for the entity sponsoring the site and whose development was not under the control of the entity sponsoring the site are not required to meet these guidelines in order for a site to meet the guidelines. These items would be considered commodities or products delivered by the site rather than being part of the site.
[REVIEWER'S NOTE: IS THIS TOO BROAD? NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING HERE. ]
=================================
SOME NOTES BETWEEN BEN AND I WHEN I WAS DRAFTING THIS ARE ALSO USEFUL TO THINK ABOUT THEY ARE BELOW.
[Gregg Note: I was thinking that we couldn't /shouldn't require that they profile which checkpoints they follow beyond a level when claiming a "+" conformance because we decided not to REQUIRE metadata, and if it isn't, presented in metadata I'm not sure how it really helps to know exactly what is or isn't complied with - and it would vary from page to page. Thoughts?]
[Ben Note: ] Hopefully, if you're an author who's claiming a "+" conformance, you have written the success criteria that have been met down somewhere. Whether an author wants to transfer that information to a publicly available claim would be up to them. You're right about not wanting to require meta information on this, so I think we should say that conformance profiles are recommended but not required (and provide alternate techniques for generating conformance profiles in the TS Techniques docs. ).
I see that you took my recommendation and removed "A conformance profile that specifies" from item #3 above. That way, we only require the authors to specify the level they're claiming. It could be done in either text on an accessibility page on the site or in EARL and could left somewhat ambiguous by the author if they didn't want to take the trouble to advertise what they've met beyond Minimum. For example, you could say something like "All content on this site meets WCAG 2.0 at the Minimum Level." And use the Minimum conformance icon. You could then say something more ambiguous like, "Where possible, the contents of this site meet level 2 and 3."
Maybe the rule is that unless you provide details about + levels, you can't use any conformance logo beyond minimum except on the pages where it is true. And that use of the logo on the HOME page has special meaning and restrictions so that you can't put it on the home page if that is the only accessible page. Even if in fine print you say that it is only the home page.
[GREGG NOTES RE - SCOPE: If we allow them to specify scope, we need to set some rules. What if they claim WCAG 2.0 2+ but then just specify that the scope statement applies only to the home and product description pages but not any of the order form pages.]
[Ben NOTE] Then they could only use the WCAG 2.0 2+ logo on those pages that meet it. The current logo use page says, "By default, a conformance icon refers to a single page. If the claim is meant to apply to include more than one page, the conformance icon must be accompanied by explicit scope information explaining which pages are covered by the claim." Does that cover it?
REGARDING FINAL COPYRIGHT CLAUSE
[BEN -] Now that we have scope as a minimum requirement for a claim, these types of materials could already be excluded by definition. Can we deal with these in techniques? This will need to be addressed in techniques for 4.1 at some level as well.
GREGG NOTE: if we just leave it to the scope statement --- and allow any exclusions in scope (and don't limit them like the above text does) then people can just exclude sections of their sites and claim conformance couldn't they?.
Gregg
-------------------------
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
Professor - Human Factors
Depts of Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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 Thursday, 30 January 2003 11:04:48 UTC