RE: a serouse issue at hand was: Re: [action] Reasons for not moving SC 3.2.2 up to level 1

Hi Lisa,

  I'm not sure I understand what you mean by " We can not devolve techniques
outside baseline technologies for the first draft"  

There is no problem developing techniques outside of any baseline.   We
don't even set a baseline - so all techniques are basically outside of
baseline.   Can you explain your concern more?

RE extending the guidelines later,  the current structure allows this.  They
would be advisory - but if we did guidelines later that  were meant to be
used in the same way these do - then they would have to meet the same
constraints as these do.   If they are meant to be used separately, then
that other set of guidelines could be done in addition to WCAG 2.0. 

We will of course bring this up at the meeting.  But I think you will get
more by looking at ways to add techniques to what we have than to remove
them.   

Note also that a separate set of guidelines for cognitive is not in our
charter so we can't make one.  And we also aren't the ones to decide if a
new charter for such a document would be created.   If it didn't make it
through approval - we would have nothing. 

I have not heard of anyone suggesting that cognitive have its own set up
guidelines.  Actually, I think we have a group consensus that we would not
allow singling out of disabilities in conformance, levels, etc. 

thanks
 
Gregg

 -- ------------------------------ 
Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D. 
Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
Director - Trace R & D Center 
University of Wisconsin-Madison 


-----Original Message-----
From: Lisa Seeman [mailto:lisa@ubaccess.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 10:20 AM
To: Gregg Vanderheiden; 'Gez Lemon'; 'WCAG'
Subject: a serouse issue at hand was: Re: [action] Reasons for not moving SC
3.2.2 up to level 1



> Please stop this non-productive thread of suggesting that we drop all 
> provisions that help people with cognitive disabilities because we 
> cannot think of ways to address all the needs of all of them.

Gregg I think this is  productive.
Unless I hear that it is OK to discuss this I will not make my suggestion
again - but I think it would be a mistake.

We have a serious issue at hand and my suggestion might be a  way out.

We are in a catch 22 situation. We can not devolve techniques outside
baseline technologies for the first draft (or so I was told) We can not have
success criteria without techniques, we need to promote adoptability, and we
need to get this draft to last call. But there is a problem we have not
solved yet, and I think we know that too.

Part of the suggestion of removing checkpoint 3 is that  after we go to last
call we start real work on an extension guideline that seriously addresses
barriers of understanding. This would work from the ground up, which a clear
and appropriate  mandate, specification and gap analysis to create a true
roadmap of success criteria and techniques creation for addressing this
important issue. We could now simply  remove guideline three from the WCAG
2.0 draft , which does not achieve very much anyway.

This would enable us to:

-Make a concentrated effort to solve these issue -We would not need to be
hampered by issues such as applicability to all sites, free speech, baseline
- People can  just conform to WCAG without the extension -Adoptability for
access for vision would not be slowed down ( by adding "hard to do"
checkpoints) -We will not hold up WCAG 2.0 -WCAG 2.0 will be simpler, we may
be able to go down to 2 conformance levels

> Suggestions and examples - particularly of techniques that have been 
> implemented successfully on multiple sites.  That is what is most useful.

Are they useful? As you know I have made tons of suggestions for years that
have been turned down because of legitimate reasons - such as applicability
to all sites, author burdens, reliant on technology outside baseline etc. I
made two drafts of an RDF technique documents ( a ton of work) that
addressed many issues, but it was taken off the critical list because it
does not fit into the baseline technologies. I have worked with LD-web, made
suggestions for CSS techniques - none of them seem to make it - all for good
reasons such as concentrating on existing success criteria. I have offered a
few time to start a small taskforce with oppositions to my perspective (such
as Joe) so that together we can make a water tight proposal. The suggestions
were not taken up but I am happy to try that again if you think it is a
better solution - I am just concerned that it will delay last call (and not
get anywhere).


All the best

Lisa

> own idiom for this type of behavior so I won't quote one here. But 
> there is no consensus to do such a thing.
>
> If you have suggestions for provisions that would help this group that 
> are testable and usable on most websites please contribute them.
>
> Best yet - provide links to places that use them.  There are many 
> programs and organizations that are dedicated to people with cognitive 
> disabilities.
> Surely at least some of them have tuned their sites to work with this 
> population.
>
> If it is a special section of their site - then the techniques could 
> be used to add as Level 3 and advisory techniques.
>
> If it is their whole site - then it might be good for other levels, 
> particularly if it has been implemented and is implementable on a wide 
> variety of sites.
>
> Finally, remember that most of the access provisions at Level 1 and 
> many at level 2 do not provide direct access to any group. They only 
> make it possible for those people to access the content if they use 
> special user
> agents.    Most of these provisions also allow for people with cognitive
> disabilities to gain access with special user agents - today and in 
> the future.
>
> Again - we all know this is a tough area.   So is deaf-blindness and other
> multiple disabilities.   Help us move forward if you can.   We have spent
> many many hours considering and trying to find guidelines and success 
> criteria that work.  And there are many many success criteria that benefit
> people with cognitive disabilities.   There are many many types of 
> cognitive
> disabilities.
>
> Suggestions and examples - particularly of techniques that have been 
> implemented successfully on multiple sites.  That is what is most useful.
> Remember, we need to be able to show multiple implementations on 
> different types of sites (and not just advocacy sites) before we can 
> get out of CR with these guidelines.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> Gregg
>
> -- ------------------------------
> Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D.
> Professor - Ind. Engr. & BioMed Engr.
> Director - Trace R & D Center
> University of Wisconsin-Madison
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On 
> Behalf Of Lisa Seeman
> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 2:14 AM
> To: Gez Lemon; WCAG
> Subject: Re: [action] Reasons for not moving SC 3.2.2 up to level 1
>
>
>>  In my opinion,
>> this just adds weight to Lisa's suggestion to drop guideline 3 and
>> stop pretending we're addressing the needs of users with cognitive
>> problems [1], as they're obviously not being considered here.
>
> This is the third agreement.
>
> Does anyone think that our guidelines really address the needs of users 
> with
> cognitive disabilities, (beyond mild disabilities such as dyslexia that 
> has
> been reasonably well treated and/or overcome) ?
>
> By the way, that is not to say that the group did not try. Just that we
> could not balance it with other needs like appropriateness for all sites. 
> I
> also suggesting that we do keep working on an extension guideline that 
> does
> address  the needs of users with cognitive disabilities.
>
> All the best
>
> Lisa
>
>
>

Received on Thursday, 12 January 2006 19:08:28 UTC