RE: Validation as test for basic accessibility

> Well, I give up.  You win.

I wish!  :-)

My expectation is that validity will be removed entirely as a SC, which is a shame, but is actually a less-harmful outcome than keeping it in at Level 2.

> You're right, we're just cheating, nothing serious.  Arguments, logic, 
> reasoning count nothing.  If I had knew...  I know a lot of jokes.  We 
> could have had fun.

I believe WAI to be walking away from a particularly important and rare opportunity.  Just my opinion.

The available reasoning supporting such a decision is entirely rational.

> Next time.  :)

Yep.

>> No one has objected to Yvette's observation that validity is 
>> necessary but not sufficient. 
 
> I objected!  Maybe someone missed it. 

Perhaps I over reached.  I thought it resulted in parsing the semantic difference between "necessary" and "required" which is to say, that the overall consensus was that validity is necessary but not required.

Validity is necessary but not required.

The statement has a Zen like quality to its subtle beauty.  I can't disagree with it.  I wish I felt I came up with it!

> I could accept that it is necessary, even if it is not.

Okay, so maybe we do agree after all?

>> I do agree with you that validity, as an end-point test, 
>> probably has more ramification for process improvement than 
>> some other Level 1 SC.  

> Wow!  That's my today's success!  :)

I don't see how that observation mitigates against why validity should be Level 1 though!

> And so, why to distinguish between L1, L2, L3?  No one answered that.

Agreed.

> So you're just trying to modify 508 and you need a higher standard?

No one, to my knowledge, is currently trying to modify 508.

> It's not our fault if 508 has not proven to be good.

Whoa!  To the contrary, I would characterize 508 as has being a fabulous success!

As someone who enforces the 508 statue though, it is glaringly obvious to me how much less work people (both content authors and us in testing) would be doing if validity was better recognized as being useful to the process of achieving accessibility.

> They released it a few month before wcag 1.0.

Your time line is a bit skewed.  Section 508 Accessibility Standards explicitly references the final WCAG 1.0 standards.

> We don't need to make choices just to national interest

I have freely admitted my biased perspective on this all along.  WCAG effects me only so much as it influences 508.

> We need good standards.  Right standards, reliable for laws 
> to be built upon.

Agreed.  The more that is right about WCAG2, the more that will effect actually enforceable statutes.

> And you mentioned nothing about the risk of 2nd type error 
> and the power of the test.  It's a relevant point. 

I missed that.  What was the 2nd type error?

> If we just want to make a very high standard, let's put validity in L1. 

Thank you, but I think your are being sarcastic here.

> Maybe we can also narrow the color range for background 
> and foreground that are allowed, even if we have no 
> evidence.  But to increase color contrast it may be useful.

I am not certain I am opposed.  It would depend on how the standard was worded I think.  We have plenty of experiential evidence with contrast, so I am not sure what you mean by that.

> And we could also prescribe to only use basic english vocabulary.
> It hasn't proven to be necessary, but may be useful.

Your sarcasm is getting thicker and thus more difficult for me to respond to, but WCAG1 checkpoint "14.1 Use the clearest and simplest language appropriate for a site's content" didn't make it into 508.  Certainly it was important, or it would not have made it to P1.  Perhaps if the sentiment could be written to be sufficiently unambiguous for the purposes of regulatory language?

Received on Thursday, 10 November 2005 16:43:43 UTC