RE: WCAG extension

The following references may be useful in the discussion:

W3C Quality Assurance Framework Specification Guidelines - Requirement 11 - Address Extensibility:
http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-spec/#likehood-extension-principle

W3C Quality Assurance Framework Specification Guidelines - Good Practice 18 - discusses extensibility:
http://www.w3.org/TR/spec-variability/#extensibility

W3C Quality Assurance Framework Specification Guidelines - Good Practice 19 - more on extensibility:
http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-spec/#breaking-conformance-gp

W3C Quality Assurance Framework Specification Guidelines - Good Practice 19 - error handling and extensibility:
http://www.w3.org/TR/qaframe-spec/#define-error-gp

W3C Variability in Specifications Working Group Note - Section 9. Extensibility:
http://www.w3.org/TR/spec-variability/#extensibility

Thanks Tim


-----Original Message-----
From: Joshue O Connor [mailto:josh@interaccess.ie] 
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 2:10 AM
To: WCAG
Subject: WCAG extension

Hi all,

On Tues call we discussed WCAG extensions, and I am bringing the topic to the list.
We would like your input on these three main areas that we see are the main potential areas of contention:

Some core questions, for WCAG extensions are:

- Can extensions modify WCAG 2.0 SC?

- Must conformance to 'WCAG 2.0 plus extension' be also backwards compatible with WCAG without extension?

- Can extensions even conflict with each other?

On Tues call for some general background we had general agreement that:

For question 1:
There was a general sense on the call of 'yes', an extension may alter the conformance requirement for a given SC. For some context, this would mean that an extension could increase WCAG conformance requirements but not decrease WCAG conformance requirements or difficulty in any way.

For question 2:
The sense from the group was 'yes'. Core WCAG is now and will always be stable and the basis for conformance, the extension may meet some new need that doesn't exist in legacy user agents and therefore this proposal may be considered to fit into our model of backwards compatibility.

For question 3:
The feeling was we want to reduce the potential for extensions to conflict in anyway, and co-ordination and supervision of TF work is therefore vital. We will work to ensure that TF facilitators are in tune with what each special group is doing, to reduce the potential for dissonance.

To be practical however, we won't know until we start development of these extensions what the potential for conflict actually is.

We look forward to your thoughts/input - minutes from the meeting are available. [1]

Thanks

[1] http://www.w3.org/2015/07/21-wai-wcag-minutes.html

Received on Thursday, 23 July 2015 14:37:17 UTC