RE: Validity

Roberto Scano wrote:
> 
> I wanna said only that authorize violation of other w3c spec. 
> will difficulty have wcag 2.0 that pass in AC Representative vote.

I have heard this argument before (the fact that WCAG cannot be seen to
allow breaking other W3C specifications) and respectfully, I disagree.

Just because we don't require something at level 1 doesn't mean the working
group thinks it isn't important for reasons other than accessibility. It
just means the working group doesn't think it's important enough *for
accessibility* at level 1. 

An analogy: Spelling errors can cause problems for people with cognitive
disabilities or people using screenreaders. The fact that we have no success
criteria about not making spelling errors does not mean we think it's ok to
make spelling errors. It just means we don't find it important enough for
accessibility to put it in our guidelines. 
Should we have a success criteria about not making spelling errors? That's
an interesting discussion which I think is worth having, focusing on the
accessibility problems of spelling errors. But we shouldn't require it just
because spelling rules exist and people shouldn't make mistakes. 

Similarly, I don't think we should require validity at level 1 just to
require following a specification. If we do want to require validity at
level 1, it should be because invalid code is an important barrier to
accessibility. So I would like to propose to focus the discussion about
requiring validity on the accessibility problems with invalid code instead
of whether we should allow violating specifications.

Yvette Hoitink
Heritas, Enschede, the Netherlands
E-mail: y.p.hoitink@heritas.nl
WWW: http://www.heritas.nl

Received on Friday, 4 November 2005 14:40:01 UTC