Re: Review request - Developing Websites for Older People

Here is some feedback collected from a few members of the WCAG Working
Group:

Some great research here and an excellent resource/reference for web
accessibility advocates overall.

Title seems not to be a good match for the document. Reading the title
alone, I'd expect it to be a narrative on the challenges faced by
individuals who are aging along with some best practices and guidance
about how to address them. Given the content, something more along the
lines of "How WCAG 2.0 Improves Websites for Older People" or "How WCAG
2.0 Applies to Older People".

Currently is organized by WCAG SC. Perhaps for development phase that
makes sense, but I suggest it be organized by the types of needs older
users have, then show how WCAG SC apply to those under that.

Reference to technology-specific techniques seems a bit too particular
for this document. They are only one of possibly many ways to meet the
need, and I'd hate to exclude by omission. It seems better to refer to
some general approach, which itself might include the known
technology-specific techniques. References to general techniques perhaps
fill that role. In cases where there is a technology-specific technique,
does this indicate there wasn't a suitable general technique to
reference? Should there be one? Or can the document abstract the
technology-specific techniques to get at the overall requirement? Some
felt documenting techniques were valuable, but others felt that may be
difficult to maintain over time.

Michael

Andrew Arch wrote:
> Hello Michael and Jeanne,
>
> Thanks for agreeing to seek reviews of this document ("Developing
> Websites for Older People: Applying WCAG 2.0" [1]) for us. The document
> includes rationale of how the WCAG 2.0 requirements benefit older people
> with accessibility needs. We're seeking input from WCAG and UAAG working
> groups on these explanations to be sure we've not left any gaps or made
> any mis-representations.
>
> This document, one of the WAI-AGE deliverables [2], is intended to
> encourage people developing websites for older users to adopt WAI
> guidelines, in particular WCAG 2.0. The need for this became obvious
> from the Literature Review [3] which clearly identified that the
> accessibility needs of older users could be met by WCAG 2.0 [4], but
> that this was not appreciated by most developers or researchers. The
> document is also intended to provide some guidance for people (eg
> researchers) who might be considering developing their own sets of
> guidelines (as many have done in the past) to reference WCAG 2.0 for
> the accessibility needs.
>
> The draft document "Developing Websites for Older People: Applying WCAG
> 2.0", after some introduction, discusses WCAG 2.0 GLs and SC from the
> perspective of older people's needs. It also highlights some specific
> techniques that should be considered for optimising a site for older
> people.
>
> We started out with cross-references to the Lit Review, but took them
> out in favour of a more general reference to that document for people
> interested in pursuing our rationales in more depth. However, for
> review purposes, numeric references have been left in as it may assist
> review. (These numeric references will be removed before publication.)
>
> Please provide feedback by 19th July, or let me know if you need more
> time to review.
>
> Thanks in anticipation, Andrew
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/sites-older-users/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/deliverables.html
> [3] http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-age-literature/
> [4] http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/comparative.html
>
>

-- 

Michael Cooper
Web Accessibility Specialist
World Wide Web Consortium, Web Accessibility Initiative
E-mail cooper@w3.org <mailto:cooper@w3.org>
Information Page <http://www.w3.org/People/cooper/>