Re: Issues and proposals: conformance claims

Section 1.2 of QA SpecGL [1] discusses providing the wording for 
conformance claims as a good practice (1.2 Good Practice A).   Techniques, 
as well, as several conformance claim templates (Forms 1 and 2) are 
given.   It is also mentioned that conformance claims are closely related 
to issues of logos and branding (see QA Handbook [2]).

1.2 Good Practice B of QA SpecGL discusses providing an Implementation 
Conformance Statement proforma

1.2 Good Practice C of QA SpecGL discusses requiring an Implementation 
Conformance Statement as part of valid conformance claims.

Would any of the previous be useful input into the current WCAG discussions?

Also, is there a commonly-agreed upon definition for "baseline" (see 
reference following)?   What about "profiles"?   QA Framework [1] Glossary 
defines "profile" as "a subset of a technology that is tailored to meet 
specific functional requirements of a particular application community".
Is that how WCAG defines "profile"?  I couldn't find definition for 
"profile" (or "baseline") in WCAG2.0 Glossary

Also, a Web resource may include multiple technologies, so would there be a 
different conformance claim for each technology included in a Web 
resource?   Shouldn't a conformance claim be able to be made for a Web 
resource (even if the resource includes more than one technology)?

ATAG2.0 WD [3] discusses "conformance profiles" - another possible input 
into discussion?

[1]: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-qaframe-spec-20041122/

[2]: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/NOTE-qa-handbook-20041122/

[3]: http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/WD-ATAG20-20041122/#Conformance-Claim

At 10:12 PM 4/5/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>At last week's telecon [1] there were several ideas that seemed to 
>resonate with everyone.  Ben and I took them as "requirements" for our 
>work on conformance claims. A summary:
>    * Conformance claims should be based on technology not user agent(s).
>    * Technology name and version is required; user agent information is 
> optional.
>    * The claim should be simple to make. Providing a template or examples 
> of common "profiles" would aid simplicity.  Common "profiles" or 
> "baselines" could be documented and referenced in claims.
>    * Audience information could be included in a claim.
>    * Include enough information in the conformance claim such that a 3rd 
> party can verify the claim.  [We conclude this means that some 
> technique-related information must be provided, although we didn't sketch 
> out how this would work. We hope to discuss this on Thursday.]
>    * Conformance claims may include other optional assumptions.
>[1] <http://www.w3.org/2005/03/31-wai-wcag-minutes.html#item06>
>
>Here is a potential "template"Â  based on the "Conformance profiles" in 
>UAAG 1.0 <http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG10/conformance.html#conformance-profiles>
>
>A conformance claim includes the following assertions:
>    * Required: The date of the claim.
>    * Required: The guidelines title/version: "Web Content Accessibility 
> Guidelines 2.0"
>    * Required: The URI of the guidelines: Â Â Â Â 
> Â 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-WCAG20-YYYYMMDD/>http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/REC-WCAG20-YYYYMMDD/ 
>
>    * Required: The conformance level satisfied: "A", "AA", or "AAA" (or 
> 1, 2, or 3??)
>    * Required: A list of the specifications used to create the content 
> for which the claim is being made.  This includes markup languages, 
> style sheet languages, scripting/programming languages,  image formats, 
> and multimedia formats.
>    * Required: For each specification, indication if the technology is 
> "used" or "relied upon" (i.e., if used - the content is usable if that 
> technology is turned off or not supported. if relied upon - the content 
> is not usable if that technology is turned off or not supported)
>    * Required: Scope of the claim (a uri, list of uris or a regular 
> expression)
>    * Optional: A list of user agents that the content has been tested 
> on.  This should include assistive technologies.
>    * Optional: Information about audience assumptions or target 
> audience.  This could include language, geographic 
> information,  interests or ???
>Examples of conformance claims
>
>Example 1:  On 13 March 2005,  johnpointer.com  conforms to W3C's WCAG 
>2.0. Conformance Level A. The specification that this content relies upon 
>is: XHTML 1.0. The specifications that this content uses are: CSS2,  Real 
>Video, Real Audio,  MP3, and gif.   This content was tested using the 
>following user agents and assistive technologies: Firefox 1.01 (windows, 
>linux), IE 3.0 and 6.0 (windows, mac), Jaws 3.7 and Jaws 6.0 (windows), 
>Safari 1.2 (Mac), Opera 7.5 (OSX).
>
>Example 2:Â  On 1 January 2005, "S5: An Introduction" 
><http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5/s5-intro.html> conforms to W3C's WCAG 
>2.0. Conformance Level A.  The specification that this content relies 
>upon is: XHTML 1.0 (Strict). The specifications that this content uses 
>are: JavaScript 1.2, CSS2, png, and jpg.
>
>Example 3:Â  On 1 January 2005, "Photo gallery application" 
><http://foo.makeyourownslideshow.com> conforms to W3C's WCAG 
>2.0.  Conformance Level A.  The specifications that this content relies 
>upon are: XHTML 1.0 (Strict), CSS2, JavaScript 1.2, jpg.  The 
>specification that this content uses is: gif.  The techniques profile 
>that this site uses is, "HTML/ECMAScript for latest browsers."Â  [Note: 
>This techniques profile is not defined, but it was something that we had 
>talked about. See "Questions and issues" that follow.]
>
>Questions and issues:
>During last week's discussion and per proposals on the mailing list there 
>is a potential requirement that  "technologies should meet minimum 
>conditions" (ala Jason's proposal at [2]). However, as part of techniques 
>we would need to clearly indicate "repair techniques" and perhaps build a 
>mapping (or a list) of techniques that we recommend for a suggested 
>baseline.  For example: for a baseline aimed at a wide audience we 
>recommend avoiding accesskey since it is not widely supported by browsers 
>and assistive technologies.
>[2] <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005JanMar/0679.html>
>
>Thoughts? Questions? Issues?
>
>Best,
>--wendy
>
>--
>wendy a chisholm
>world wide web consortium
>web accessibility initiative
><http://www.w3.org/WAI/>http://www.w3.org/WAI/
>/--