- From: Jason White <jasonw@ariel.ucs.unimelb.edu.au>
- Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 14:22:53 +1000 (EST)
- To: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
This is my attempt to compile a list of arguments for and against normative checklists, while the topic is under discussion: In favour: 1. Certainty for developers/implementors: meeting the checklist is indefeasibly tantamount to satisfying the success criteria (at the appropriate level). Thereby, concerns about the generality of the guidelines are overcome - the technology-specifics in the checklist have equal normative status with the guidelines and success criteria. 2. By proceeding to Recommendation, the checklists could receive a higher degree of scrutiny and review than might otherwise occur. Is this really true? Any others benefits? Disadvantages: 1. W3C notes are easier to modify than Recommendations; cf. item 2 in the advantages above for the trade-off between ease of maintenance and degree of review. 2. There could arise a temptation for checklists, as Recommendations in their own right, to be out of line with the guidelines, i.e., creative interpretations of the guidelines that should more properly be dealt with as errata (this would apply to checklists issued after the guidelines became a Recommendation). With non-normative checklists, the guidelines would be normative and the checklists not; hence there would be no ambiguity as to what was the requirement that had to be met. 3. How to deal with technologies for which checklists wouldn't be issued by the W3C - see earlier discussion in this mailing list thread. 4. Normative checklists might encourage developers to apply the checklists instead of looking at and applying the guidelines. This might not be an issue if the checklists were good, that is, if meeting the checklist gave true assurance of satisfying the success criteria, which is the essence of the proposal anyway. With a good checklist, a developer shouldn't have to refer to the guidelines except for clarification, examples etc., and likewise for techniques. Others? Ultimately it is a question of whether one thinks item 1 in the advantages list outweighs all of the disadvantages, if the latter were minimized by designing the checklists appropriately.
Received on Wednesday, 12 May 2004 00:23:10 UTC