RE: Definition of human testability

I'm not following you Charles.  

What this says - is that all success criteria must be reliably testable.
That is, we can't have success criteria like "Write clearly" since 10 users
would differ on what constituted 'clearly'.     The test cannot be more
specific than the guideline, so all the testers could go on was their own
training for what constituted 'clearly'.    

NOTE: that it is not yet clear whether all of the SC we have are specific
enough to be reliably testable without referring to technology specific
checklists.  But that is another discussion.  Hopefully we can make them
specific enough in the doc.  What the consensus is though - is just that we
should not have anything listed in the SC category that an author cannot
reliably determine (or have determined) that they have met. 

Make sense now?  If not - then we need to figure out how to word it better. 

 
Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 


-----Original Message-----
From: Charles McCathieNevile [mailto:charles@w3.org] 
Sent: Saturday, May 01, 2004 12:41 PM
To: Gregg Vanderheiden
Cc: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: RE: Definition of human testability

This seems backwards. Presumably we believe that all tests will produce
consistent results when done by reasonably knowledgeable people, with some
of
them also being sufficiently simple to automate completely.

Otherwise we have no basis for deciding whether a particular test that a
tool
does is in fact a valid one or not, and in the case of two conflicting
results from tools we would not have any way of declaring which was
accurate...

cheers

Chaals

On Thu, 29 Apr 2004, Gregg Vanderheiden wrote:

>Yes
>
>That is what is intended I believe.
>
>Your alternative wording #1 is closest.   The word "certain" isn't quite
>right since it would apply to all of the non-machine testable items   so it
>would become
>
>
>
>1. In the judgment of the working group members, the success criteria that
>are not machine testable can be tested by humans in a manner that is
capable
>of yielding consistent results among multiple knowledgeable testers.
>
>
>
>
>Gregg
>
> -- ------------------------------
>Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
>Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
>Director - Trace R & D Center
>University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>  _____
>
>From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
Behalf
>Of Sailesh Panchang
>Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2004 11:22 AM
>To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
>Subject: Definition of human testability
>
>
>
>    Present draft: "Success criteria for all levels would be testable.
>Some success criteria
>may be machine-testable. Others may require human judgment.
>Success criteria that require human testing would, in the judgment of the
>working group members,  yield consistent results among multiple
>knowledgeable testers."
>Comment:
>Wording of the last sentence is confusing. I believe what is meant is:
>"Judgment of the working group members" applies to identification of
>criteria that can be tested with  consistency  and reliability  by humans.
>Right?
>Do we intend to list these tests?
>Consider following alternatives:
>1. In the judgment of the working group members, certain success criteria
>can be tested by humans in a manner that is capable of yielding consistent
>results among multiple knowledgeable testers.
>
>
>
>2. Claims of conformance  to success criteria can be based on human testing
>is such testing has yielded or is capable of yielding consistent results
>among multiple knowledgeable testers.
>
>Sailesh Panchang
>
>Senior Accessibility Engineer
>Deque Systems,11180  Sunrise Valley Drive,
>4th Floor, Reston VA 20191
>Tel: 703-225-0380 Extension 105
>E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
>Fax: 703-225-0387
>* Look up <http://www.deque.com> *
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Charles McCathieNevile  http://www.w3.org/People/Charles  tel: +61 409 134
136
SWAD-E http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe         fax(france): +33 4 92 38 78
22
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Received on Sunday, 2 May 2004 00:33:53 UTC