Conformance Issues

Wendy asked me to take a look at the conformance issues [1] and provide a
summary and proposals. Many of them will require a lot more thought than I
have time for this week. Here are the proposals I think we should consider
in a survey prior to next week's face to face meeting.

1324 [2]
- objects to the baseline technology assumption in the editorial note.

<proposal>
- The latest draft contains a re-write of the Conformance Requirements
section [9] that better explains our concept about baselines and where they
will be defined and links to a definition of baseline. I recommend that we
close this issue and let reviewers comment on our new text.
<end proposal>

1329 [3]
- questions how "Any conformance with WCAG 2.0 requires that all level 1
success criteria for all guidelines be met." can be true if not all
guidelines have a level 1 success criteria.
- I think we can resolve this by replacing "for all guidelines" with "in
the guidelines". I also think we should change the word "be" to "are" in
item 1 to be consistent with the other 3.

<current wording>
1. Any conformance with WCAG 2.0 requires that all level 1 success criteria
for all guidelines be met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
2. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level A means that all level 1 success criteria
for all guidelines are met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
3. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Double-A means that all level 1 and all
level 2 success criteria for all guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
4. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Triple-A means that all level 1, level 2
and level 3 success criteria for all guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
<end current wording>

<proposed wording>
1. Any conformance with WCAG 2.0 requires that all level 1 success criteria
in the guidelines are met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
2. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level A means that all level 1 success criteria
in the guidelines are met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
3. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Double-A means that all level 1 and all
level 2 success criteria in the guidelines met assuming user agent support
for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
4. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Triple-A means that all level 1, level 2
and level 3 success criteria in the guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
<end proposed wording>

1330 [4]
- says that if the delivery unit falls outside the guidelines, such as a
PDF document, it can't be called either conformant or non-conformant.

<proposal>
Close this issue. The new wording of the Conformance Requirements section
[9] clarifies that the guidelines can be applied to non-W3C technologies.
<end proposal>

1359 [5]
- questions conformance claims that do not contain the conformance level.
- The section titled "Conformance Claims" makes it clear that the level of
conformance is required on all conformance claims. I think the confusion
here is a result of item 1 in the conformance section. (1. Any conformance
with WCAG 2.0 requires that all level 1 success criteria for all guidelines
be met.) I recommend that we remove this item. The other 3 items together
with the section on Conformance Claims make it clear that Level 1 is always
required for any claim.

<current wording>
1. Any conformance with WCAG 2.0 requires that all level 1 success criteria
for all guidelines be met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
2. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level A means that all level 1 success criteria
for all guidelines are met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
3. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Double-A means that all level 1 and all
level 2 success criteria for all guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
4. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Triple-A means that all level 1, level 2
and level 3 success criteria for all guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
<end current wording>

- note that proposed wording assumes proposal for issue 1329 above was
accepted. If not, "in the guidelines" below will revert back to the current
wording "in all guidelines"
<proposed wording>
1. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level A means that all level 1 success criteria
in the guidelines are met assuming user agent support for only the
technologies in the chosen baseline.
2. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Double-A means that all level 1 and all
level 2 success criteria in the guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
3. WCAG 2.0 conformance at level Triple-A means that all level 1, level 2
and level 3 success criteria in the guidelines are met assuming user agent
support for only the technologies in the chosen baseline.
<end proposed wording>


1364 [6]
- questions whether Level 1 can be achieved if Scripting is used

<proposal>
Close this issue. The new text in the Conformance Requirements section [9]
clarifies that the guidelines are meant to be technology independent and
that the use of specific technologies is dependent on the baseline which is
defined outside the scope of these guidelines.
<end proposal>

1365 [7]
- reviewer doesn't understand the Level 2 success criteria categorization
bullets

<current wording>
1. Increase accessibility through one or both of the following:
    a. further facilitating the ability of user agents to provide
accessible content
    b. recommending content and/or presentation that provides direct
accessibility without requiring users who have disabilities or their user
agents to do anything different from users without disabilities or their
user agents
2. Can reasonably be applied to all Web resources.
<end current wording>

<proposed wording>
1. Achieve an enhanced level of accessibility through markup, scripting, or
other technologies that interact with or enable access through user agents,
including assistive technologies.
2. Acheive an enhanced level of accessibility through the design of the
content and presentation.
3. Can reasonably be applied to all Web resources.
<end proposed wording>

1366 [8]
- reviewer doesn't understand the phrase "direct and user agent enhanced
accessibility"

<current wording>
1. Go beyond Level 1 and 2 to increase direct and user agent enhanced
accessibility.
<end current wording>

<proposed wording>
1. Achieve usability enhancements for people with disabilities in certain
contexts.
2. Are not applicable to all Web resources.
<end proposed wording>

[1] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/issuereports/conformance_issues.php
[2] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1324
[3] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1329
[4] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1330
[5] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1359
[6] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1364
[7] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1365
[8] http://trace.wisc.edu/bugzilla_wcag/show_bug.cgi?id=1366
[9] http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-WCAG20-20050601/#conformance

Andi
andisnow@us.ibm.com
IBM Accessibility Center
(512) 838-9903, http://www.ibm.com/able
Internal Tie Line 678-9903, http://w3.austin.ibm.com/~snsinfo

Received on Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:14:41 UTC