RE: 3.1.4 Step 1.d: Define the Context of Website Use

HI Shadi

First off.... thanks so much to both you and Eric for staying up so late to
meet with the group ... I understand how hard it is to gain consensus, and
it would have been better if I'd closely examined the document earlier in
the week and done this in standard comment fashion on a survey... I know how
committed you both are to this project and to accessibility in general...I 

[[
This definition of target users and tools needs to meet the terms defined in
WCAG 2.0 Level of Assistive Technology Support Needed for "Accessibility
Support" and needs to be supported throughout the website. For example, if
one part of a website is accessible using one set of tools that is different
from a set of tools is needed to access another part of the same website
then the website is effectively not accessible for some users. Accessibility
support needs to be uniform throughout a single website.
]]

Your proposed edit addresses my major concern from a testing perspective...
I agree in general that if half the site only works with voice over and half
only works with JAWS, it can be a problem... and I don't want to hold up the
draft ... which we can address next time... which would be... "whether we
are overstepping WCAG if we use the word "need" to require that the entire
site has to be spec'ed to run on all the same AT... I think it's a good
thing for a site to be uniformly accessibility supported ... but not
absolutely sure it should be a requirement of this methodology, especially
for huge web sites that have lots of different authors and lots of different
accessibility consultants on different sections of it... 

But for now your edit is ok for me to say, let's publish the draft ... and
take it up on the other side...

Cheers
David MacDonald

CanAdapt Solutions Inc.
  "Enabling the Web"
www.Can-Adapt.com 


-----Original Message-----
From: Shadi Abou-Zahra [mailto:shadi@w3.org] 
Sent: September-06-12 6:27 PM
To: David MacDonald; Eric Velleman
Cc: WCAG WG; Eval TF
Subject: 3.1.4 Step 1.d: Define the Context of Website Use

Hi David,

Ref: <http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/conformance/ED-methodology-20120904#step1d>

During the WCAG WG you spotted a paragraph that could be misread:

[[
This definition of target users and tools must meet the terms defined in
WCAG 2.0 Level of Assistive Technology Support Needed for "Accessibility
Support" and must be used throughout the evaluation. For example, it is not
possible to evaluate some pages with one set of tools and other pages with
another set. Accessibility support must be uniform throughout a single
website.
]]

AFAIK the intent was not that the evaluator needs to test with the same set
of tools but rather that there is consistent support for a minimum set of
browsers and assistive technologies across the website.

How about this suggestion to replace the paragraph above:

[[
This definition of target users and tools needs to meet the terms defined in
WCAG 2.0 Level of Assistive Technology Support Needed for "Accessibility
Support" and needs to be supported throughout the website. For example, if
one part of a website is accessible using one set of tools that is different
from a set of tools is needed to access another part of the same website
then the website is effectively not accessible for some users. Accessibility
support needs to be uniform throughout a single website.
]]

Does that address your concern?

Regards,
   Shadi

--
Shadi Abou-Zahra - http://www.w3.org/People/shadi/ Activity Lead, W3C/WAI
International Program Office Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT
WG) Research and Development Working Group (RDWG)

Received on Thursday, 6 September 2012 23:39:55 UTC