WCAG-CSS mapping part 1

Attached is an extremely rough draft of my first thoughts at possible 
mappings of WCAG
2.0 WD 10/27/03 Guidelines and Success Criteria to CSS3 Modules. These 
thoughts
are "off the top of my head" and are meant to stimulate discussion and 
thinking. The
document is oriented towards levels of WCAG conformance. Comments welcome;
not all of these modules will probably be applicable in practice, but I 
"stretched" in
including them, thinking it would be easier to eliminate them later. It may 
not be possible
to satisfy all WCAG success criteria just by using CSS techniques. I know 
until I actually
generate CSS code I will not know if any of this is accurate, but this is 
just to put something
on the table. I like Michael Cooper's observation of strong vs. weak CSS 
implications (thanks!) so I included
that as well.


Some thoughts that came to mind while doing this exercise:

(1) to what extent is it possible (or feasible-practicable) to satisfy the 
various WCAG conformance levels by just using
CSS as a supporting technology (applied to HTML, or to XML, or to SVG, or 
to something else)? What is
a "minimum" combination of technologies that is needed for such satisfaction?

(2) what does it mean for a CSS technique to have a significant or material 
influence in satisfying
WCAG success criteria, as opposed to just a tangential or assistive role 
(with another technology
being predominant)? Would it be better to organize WCAG success criteria in 
terms of degree of CSS involvement?

(3) If there is a choice of combinations of technologies that would satisfy 
WCAG success criteria,
which combination should be chosen? Since various CSS3 profiles are 
expected to incorporate different
combinations of CSS3 modules, implementing one CSS3 profile over another 
may have implications as to
also satisfying WCAG conformance levels.

(4) Is the content of a WCAG guideline "monolithic" with regards to 
technologies needed to support that
guideline? In other words, could I use different technologies to support 
level 1 of Guideline X than I would use
to support level 2 of Guideline X (importance of the levels vs. importance 
of the guideline statement)?
Right now the document is just something to "shoot at", but is this a 
possible direction for future development efforts?

Thanks and happy holidays,
Tim Boland NIST

PS I will be sending two other attachments - one going the other way (CSS3 
modules to WCAG success criteria),and one mapping WCAG to CSS2.1