Re: Conformance levels and best practices

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Sailesh Panchang wrote:
>>
>> But a P3 checkpoint  enhances accessibility and therefore usability 
>> and shows the way ahead as is intended for "best practices".  So why
not
>> stick with the terms P1, P2 and P3... it will also be   "backward 
>> compatible"... Goal 6 for WCAG2 in requirements doc. The required
success 
>> criteria should be  categorized as  P1 or P2 or P3.


Jason White wrote:
> In developing WCAG 2.0, the distinctions underpinning the 1.0 priority
> definitions were subjected to detailed, critical scrutiny, with the
result
> that the working group decided they were no longer tenable for
purposes of
> the 2.0 document,


I have to agree with Sailesh to some extent, when I first looked at the
WCAG 2.0 draft I was a little taken aback. Although I will admit the
mapping document does go some of the way to easing comparison between
the two versions. People using and conforming to version one might be
surprised.

However what has struck me as something that we should perhaps aim at is
presenting a guideline which is future proofed. It is 4 years since the
original guideline was published and there is still work to do on the
current, this means that WCAG 1.0 will, by the time it is replaced, have
had a lifetime of 5 years or more. Personally I regard the Priority 3
guidelines as eminently achievable for the most part with today's
browsers and today's multimedia. As such should we not look to adding an
amount of future proofing to WCAG 2.0 since it too has to last 5 years
are we sure it will remain relevant?


Tom Croucher

Co-founder Netalley Networks
(http://www.netalleynetworks.com),
BSc(Hons) Computing Student / Information Services Staff University of
Sunderland
(http://www.sunderland.ac.uk),
Accessibility Co-ordinator Plone CMS
(http://www.plone.org)

Received on Tuesday, 16 September 2003 07:16:27 UTC