Re: Level 3

On Sat, Jun 11, 2005 at 11:22:24PM +0000, Joe Clark wrote:
> 
> Consider this a further proposal to drop Level 3 criteria completely 

This ought to be distinguished carefully from Matt's proposal, namely 
that (1) level 3 criteria remain in the guidelines, (2) the level 3 
conformance level corresponding to complete satisfaction of the success 
criteria at all three levels be dropped; and (3) that allowing A+ and 
AA+ conformance claims upon the satisfaction of one or more level 3 
success criteria should be considered.

I have serious concerns about the idea of removing level 3 items
altogether, as level 3 provides an important place for criteria that are
otherwise testable and offer substantial enhancements to accessibility,
but which for various reasons ought not to be promoted to levels 1 or 2.

I think it is an entirely reasonable proposal, requiring further 
discussion, that granular conformance claims be allowed, including 
specification of which guidelines have been met at level 3. There seems 
to be a strong weight of opinion against admitting granular conformance 
claims at level 2, but, if I recall correctly, the possibility of 
allowing them at level 3 remains open and has been acknowledged as an 
unresolved issue.

In response to Matt, there seems to be little difference between, on the 
one hand, allowing a tripple A conformance claim, and on the other, 
permitting a claim of level 2 plus a list that happens to include all of 
the guidelines possessing level 3 success criteria. In other words, 
providing an AAA conformance level just enables more elegant expression 
of what would otherwise be a level 2 claim, plus a full list of level 3 
items, thereby amounting to a claim of complete conformance to the 
guidelines as a whole. Thus, dropping the AAA conformance level while 
allowing a list of level 3 items still permits, in effect, a full level 
3 claim to be made, though it might induce different perceptions or 
discourage inappropriate application of the conformance mechanism, as 
Matt suggests. Accordingly it would be possible to adopt Matt's proposal 
without actually reducing the range of conformance claims that can be 
made; and this would not be an unreasonable path to take, depending on 
how the working group ultimately regards the issues surrounding 
perception and application that Matt raises.

As currently understood, level 3 items must achieve the same level of 
precision and testability as all other success criteria in the document; 
and unless this decision is changed, level 3 cannot become a repository 
of ambiguous or untestable requirements. Of course, if nothing at level 
3 can satisfy the testability constraint then there would be an argument 
for removing this level as it would then be empty.

Received on Monday, 13 June 2005 08:40:03 UTC