New proposal for WCAG conformance

[NOTE: This is posted today for discussion NEXT week.  Not for this week.
Not sufficient time for people to review. Comments welcome though.]

 

Described here is an alternate way to look at conformance

 

It addresses the following concerns

1 - multiple dimensions of conformance

2 - match to WCAG 1.0 in structure and measures

[BBC] I'd reword #2 to say "compatibility with WCAG 1.0 and other WAI
guidelines" 3 - ability to both have minimum and advanced ways to address
individual guidelines

 

This proposal assumes:

 

1 - that the 4 guidelines are now principles (Perceivable, Operable,
Understandable and Robust)

 

2 - that the old checkpoints are now Guidelines. 

 

3 - that the success criteria remain success criteria  (the term checkpoints
would be reserved for the checklists so we don't have confusion between the
two which is almost certain if we have checklists and checkpoints that are
different.

 

 

Proposed:

 

- The terms CORE and EXTENDED are dropped. (these terms are used differently
in other technical specs and didn't quite fit here.  Also they introduced a
completely different structure and terminology than WCAG 1.0)

 

- All 20 (or so) guidelines would be listed under the four principles and
numbered  1.1, 1.2 etc. (no change from previous drafts)

 

- All success criteria are labeled as Category 1, 2 or 3 

 

    Category 1 = success criteria that 

       a) the author is not told how to present their information, 

       b) the criteria are reasonably applicable to all websites in general

 

       c) are machine or HHIR testable.

 

   Category 2 = success criteria that 

      a) are reasonably applicable to all websites in general and 

      b) are machine or HHIR testable 

      c) may require the author to present their content in 

      particular ways to conform.

 

   Category 3 = additional criteria that go beyond Category 1 and 2 

      that authors may want to consider if they want to make their sites 

      accessible or more usable to people with all or particular types of 

      disability.  

 

- Some guidelines will have NO Category 1 items under them and are so
marked.

 

- The conformance would take the form of the familiar A, AA, and AAA.  The
only difference would be that guidelines without category 1 criteria would
be listed at the end of each principle and would have a title following them

that said, "no Level A criteria for this guideline."    

 

- the Categories might be relabeled A, AA and AAA

 

- The guidelines (or an accompanying document) could have a series of
checkboxes that allowed the user to view it with the following materials
showing or hidden.

 

    - Introduction

    - Level A success criteria 

    - Level AA success criteria

    - Level AAA additional criteria

    - Benefits

    - Examples

    - Appendix

 

This would have a couple disadvantages that we can look at and tweak. But,
the advantages look like they outweigh the weaknesses.

 

And, it solves most of the problems we have been facing:

  - WCAG 2.0 would for the first time look like an evolution of WCAG 1.0

  - The familiar A, AA, AAA would be there.

  - Most of the WCAG 1.0 will match up with WCAG 2.0 except where the 

    working group believes that they no long should.

  - The guidelines would look more like 1.0 but would be generic.

  - Transition would be easier to understand.

 

To see how all this might look, we have posted another reorganization
proposal at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2003/10/reorg5.html. 

 

 

Note that a number of condensed views of this draft are provided immediately
following the list of editors.

 

You can view it with ONLY Level A conformance criteria.

Or A plus Double A

Or A plus Double A plus Triple A

 

The appendix is shown in all views

 

The Examples and Benefits could be made to appear in different views but
only appear in the full view right now.

 

PS if you click on a view then want to get back to the full doc you can hit
"BACK" or click on the "THIS VERSION" link at the top of  all views.

 

-Gregg and Ben