- From: Paul Walsh <paul.walsh@segalamtest.com>
- Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2005 17:55:36 -0000
- To: "'Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG)'" <rscano@iwa-italy.org>, <r.castaldo@iol.it>, <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Ok, let me make myself clear for the sake of the record. Today, certification is given upon the successful completion of audits based on the guidelines. These all pass, including validity. I'm in favour of validity for all the reasons stated by others, I just don't think it's necessary where a site is accessible to all, but still contains 'some' invalid code that's too costly or too time consuming to put right. The first thing we check for is code validity. All tests end up passing by the time certification is given. However, 'editors' with little to no coding experience, using a CMS to make updates, usually introduce some invalid code, yet everything remains entirely accessible and usable to assistive technologies. (That's not to say that some sites don't end up inaccessible at some point.) This very debate is one of the reasons we are moving away from the three categories. We are more interested in providing personalise search capabilities through the use of machine readable content labels using RDF-CL. This will enable users to choose the type of accessibility implementations that are important to them. I encourage the WAI to be used as the basis for best practise design, but from this week, will no longer use it as a commercial means of justifying accessibility. The self-regulated content labelling scheme will be officially launched next week. I remember a recent email asking if there was such a scheme available, so I'll give more information when replying to that email. To give you a taste, we're also due to launch a new browser in December with built-in search annotation and rating capability, allowing users to rate a trustmark. Alas, self-regulation that works to prove the concept of personalised search! To summarise, I'm in favour of validity, but I wouldn't like it to be seen as a defacto checkpoint. I think it's great to help with accessibility but it ends up on the bottom of my list if all else equals accessibility anyway. Hope that helps to clarify my position :) Paul Segala -----Original Message----- From: Roberto Scano (IWA/HWG) [mailto:rscano@iwa-italy.org] Sent: 05 November 2005 17:30 To: paul.walsh@segalamtest.com; r.castaldo@iol.it; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org Subject: RE: Validity Sorry, How can they conform to double A if code is not valid? (wcag 1.0 checkpoint 3.2). If you certificate these web sites for wcag conformance and don't check for validity, you grant a certification for level AA that is not true. ----- Messaggio originale ----- Da: "Paul Walsh"<paul.walsh@segalamtest.com> Inviato: 05/11/05 18.11.49 A: "'Roberto Castaldo'"<r.castaldo@iol.it>, "w3c-wai-gl@w3.org"<w3c-wai- gl@w3.org> Oggetto: RE: Validity Firstly, why do you amongst others, feel that the only testable guidelines are those that are done using tools? We certify sites every week and if we were to failed them as a result of invalid code, the vast majority of them would fail - even though they meet all Double-A and two checkpoints in Treble-AAA. I hope you're not trying to tell me that these sites should fail the basic level of accessibility just because they contain invalid code? If you are, then you don't live in the real world. I will reiterate, introducing validity to the lowest level of conformance (whilst ignore the fact that a site can be accessible) will alienate people from using the WAI, me included. What's important in all of this is that machine readable labels can cover guidelines that aren't necessarily categorised, so users can choose the most important ones for their requirements. Please refrain from telling me to stop using a specific reason for my side of the argument. I've seen this debate go on for long enough and am aware that it has been used. Common sense tells me that if a site meets Double-A standards and is very user friendly, you can't fail it just because the code doesn't pass a test using a tool. Kind regards, Paul Segala -----Original Message----- From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Roberto Castaldo Sent: 05 November 2005 16:37 To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org Subject: Re: Validity Hi group, i do not like any action in favour of tag soup, and I'm afraid we risk to do that; the problem, the real problem about tag soup, is that none of us is really able to define what an hypothetical "good tag soup" may be; so it's not possible to write a single guideline, or a tecnique that says how to write good code without validating it. Maurizio and Paul, we all know that a valid page can have terrible code (but none has never said it, so please stop using this argument), so valid code by itself is not enough, but it is one of the few anchors, one of the few impartial and objective milestones which is testable by everyone and that gives the best interoperability guarantee. That's why valid code is the best starting point for any web based project, and cannot be other than L1. And what about the W3C compliant authoring tools shortage? That's the actual [Messaggio troncato. Toccare Modifica->Segna per il download per recuperare la restante parte.]
Received on Saturday, 5 November 2005 17:55:32 UTC