Sufficient techniques- definition and guidance

Loretta / Greg,
Is this guidance contradictory and confusing?  

"How to meet WCAG 2.0" doc states:
"Authors are encouraged to apply all techniques that they are able to, including the advisory techniques, in order to best address the needs of the widest possible range of users". 
On the other hand,  refer to "Sufficient and Advisory Techniques" under  Intro to Understanding WCAG 2.0, which states:
"In order to provide guidance and examples for meeting the guidelines using specific technologies (for example HTML) the working group has identified sufficient techniques for each Success Criterion that are sufficient to meet that Success Criterion. Sufficient techniques are provided in a numbered list where each list item provides the technique or combination of techniques that can be used to meet the Success Criterion". 
"Most Success Criteria have multiple sufficient techniques listed. Any of the listed sufficient techniques can be used to meet the Success Criterion". 
So in the above, one doc says any one technique is sufficient and the other doc encourages  more than one technique to be implemented. So which is it. I do realize one uses "encourages". But:
Specifically, consider SC 2.4.1 for skipping blocks of content:
There are two groups of sufficient techniques: one for an actual skip nav link and the other set for proper structural markup like heading, frames, etc.
One may conclude that if headings are implemented (H69) of group#2 of sufficient techniques, then SC 2.4.1 is met.
But user agent notes for H69 acknowledge that this does not work in all situations. The actual skip nav link technique does work for a wider set of situations.
 Then are individual techniques of the second group really sufficient?
So while group# 2 of the sufficient techniques for SC 2.4.1 is helpful and enhances navigation abilities, they are not sufficient by themselves given today's user agent scenario.
As for me, besides skip nav, I recommend headings and use of landmark roles too to clients.
Please can you share your thoughts?
Thanks,
Sailesh Panchang
www.deque.com

Received on Thursday, 17 February 2011 16:22:03 UTC