RE: Proposal to Delete or Keep 2.4.1

A major reason to delete 2.4.1 that I am hearing from people is that
there are no techniques. That is not exactly accurate: there are plenty
of techniques, as the current How to Meet document (thanks for
enhancements Christophe) shows. The concern people have is that all of
the techniques also map to other success criteria. They therefore
believe this SC is redundant and should be removed.

I have said before and will say again, and again, and again, that it is
not a problem that techniques that map to 2.4.1 also map to other SC. We
have a great number of techniques that map to multiple SC, and it would
be difficult in many cases to say that they have any special home in a
particular one of the SC. There is even a SC, 2.1.2, that has _no_
techniques listed at all [1]. 2.1.2 explicitly says the techniques are
the same as 2.1.1, except that the exception in 2.1.1 is not applied. We
contemplated removing 2.1.2 on the no techniques argument and it was
rejected. Therefore I believe there is precedent and that lack of unique
techniques is not, in itself, justification to remove 2.4.1. 

I believe navigation is an extremely important aspect of using the Web,
and an area full of problems for people with disabilities. It merits
some special treatment in WCAG, even if the way to meet the SC is the
same as the way to meet some other SC. I haven't heard an argument that
is consistent with other decisions we have taken that convince me it
should be removed, and I think it would greatly weaken WCAG 2 if we did.

Michael

[1]
http://trace.wisc.edu/wcag_wiki/index.php?title=How_to_Meet_Success_Crit
erion_2.1.2


> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-gl-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Christophe Strobbe
> Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 12:27 PM
> To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Proposal to Delete or Keep 2.4.1
> 
> 
> 
> Since I defended keeping this SC, I had to put my money where my mouth
is
> and write the technique that remained empty:
> http://digbig.com/4grxr (Programmatically expose common navigational
> features).
> 
> Apart from this technique, only two other items seem unique to this
> success
> criterion (see Loretta's mail):
> * Using the link element and navigation tools.
> * Failure due to using scripting events instead of anchors.
> 
> Since the last survey on this success criterion (GL 2.4 Issues and
> Techniques, 16 February), 4.1.2 has been reworded and is no longer
> restricted to components that respond to user input, so it now seems
to
> cover the two items above.
> 
> I assume that XLink and XHTML 2's nl element (see John's mail) will
> probably be rendered through a presentation that conveys
relationships, in
> which case they are covered by the reworded 1.3.1 ("Information and
> relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically
> determined.")
> 
> It seems that my case against deleting 2.4.1 is overcome by events
because
> my concerns against deleting it have been addressed elsewhere. (Unless
I
> overlooked something.)
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Christophe Strobbe
> 
> 
> --
> Christophe Strobbe
> K.U.Leuven - Departement of Electrical Engineering - Research Group on
> Document Architectures
> Kasteelpark Arenberg 10 - 3001 Leuven-Heverlee - BELGIUM
> tel: +32 16 32 85 51
> http://www.docarch.be/
> 
> 
> Disclaimer: http://www.kuleuven.be/cwis/email_disclaimer.htm
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 15 March 2006 20:41:53 UTC