Re: Dimensionality of WCAG 2

Nice picture!

When I look the picture everything seems smooth and nicely abstracted. When 
start thinking about the important issues, like supporting navigation, 
which was in one of the 2 main themes in WCAG 1.0. I cannot find it easily 
in WCAG 2.0. Similarly separating structure and content from presentation 
and making structure explicit in mark-up are kind of hidden now.

I think people need a bit more concrete list of accessibility heuristics 
(similar to the usability heuristics) that are important when they start 
thinking about problems in a Web page. The techniques are in a too low 
level to be used as heuristics. The WCAG 2.0 guidelines are a bit too terse 
and abstract. Not sure where these heuristics should fit now.

Marja

At 05:43 PM 10/2/2003 +0200, Yvette P. Hoitink wrote:

>During the telecon last week, I raised the issue of two different dimensions
>that exist in WCAG 2, which continue to cause problems in discussions. The
>one dimension is the importance (core, extended), and the other dimension is
>the conformance level (succes criteria, best practice, information). For
>both dimensions you have level of obligation, which makes it complicated.
>(you _must_ do all of the core, but _could_ do extended but for each
>guideline you choose to follow (either in core or extended), you _must_ meet
>the succes criteria but _could_ meet best practices).
>
>To illustrate the problem, I made a picture in which I added a 3d dimension
>: the category of the guidelines (perceivable, operable, understandable,
>robust). It can be found on: http://www.dutchgenealogy.nl/test/wcag_3d.gif
>Together, the three dimensions describe all the different aspects of the
>WCAG 2 guidelines.
>
>To make WCAG 2 a document that can be easily implemented, I think it might
>be necessary to integrate the two different dimensions for importance and
>conformance. If it's already confusing to us who are really into these
>guidelines, I don't even want to think about how confusing it will be for
>people for whom this is their first experience with accessibility. The WCAG
>document should be very clear to all about what is required and what is
>optional. The current situation, especially the optional guidelines with
>required criteria, is asking for trouble IMHO.
>
>I'm sorry I can't do much more than point out the problem at this time. I'm
>thinking about ways to integrate the two dimensions but haven't been
>successful so far. That's why I decided to write this mail to the list. I
>first want to know if the rest of you think the multiple dimensions are a
>problem as well. If so, maybe we can put our heads together and think of a
>solution.
>
>Yvette Hoitink
>CEO Heritas, Enschede, The Netherlands

Received on Thursday, 2 October 2003 13:11:07 UTC