Re: WCAG Extensions and Rationale (was Legal Settlement Agreements that Reference WCAG)

Hi Judy,

Thank you for your insight. It is very much appreciated. And I am
sorry for any miscommunication.

I agree that the topic of extensions is complex and needs to be
informed from many angles. As you explained speed and the broader
rethink of guidelines certainly are 2 significant factors.

Development of WAI 3.0 is a great idea. The Accessible Online Learning
Community Group [1] recently conducted a survey. One of the questions
asked was what extent current W3C Accessibility standards support the
creation and evaluation of accessible online learning. To quote David
Sloan's summary [2] of the results for that question:

<quote>
* WCAG is widely recognised as having a very positive impact in
supporting accessible online learning. WAI-ARIA (Accessible Rich
Internet Applications) is also positively rated, but the impact of
ATAG and UAAG is less confidently expressed.

* WCAG strongly appears to be the most well-known. Several of the
supporting comments make reference to its legal significance.

* Several comments indicated a limited, or lack of, awareness of the
other sets of W3C guidelines/specifications, which indicates a less
clear picture of W3C WAI’s components of accessibility (to ensure
accessible content, we also need accessible content creation tools and
browsing technology, including assistive technology, that can
effectively present this content).
</unquote>

A unified WAI 3.0 incorporating all WAI areas could help raise
awareness, harmonization, and uptake.

I am please to hear EOWG will be updating documentation on laws around
the world that reference WCAG 2.0.

With regard to the Wiki page, the Working Group doesn't meet for
another week (most folks are on vacation), but I will coordinate with
Josh, Andrew, Michael, and the rest of the group then.

Kindest Regards,
Laura

[1] https://www.w3.org/community/accesslearn/
[2] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-accesslearn/2015Jul/0006.html
On 8/2/15, Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org> wrote:
> Hi Laura,
>
> On 8/1/2015 8:55 AM, Laura Carlson wrote:
>> Hi Judy and all,
>>
>> On 7/30/15, Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org> wrote:
>>> As for legal settlement agreements referencing WCAG, that's not in the
>>> scope of the WCAG WG either. There is a policy references page
>>> (currently being updated) that EOWG maintains in support of harmonized
>>> standards uptake; a listing of agreements might perhaps be peripherally
>>> related to that, but we would need to confirm with EOWG before moving it
>>> there and they may also feel that it is out of scope.
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you have questions.
>> It is great to hear from you. I do have some questions.
>>
>> But first let me say that I am very sorry that you feel the Legal
>> Settlement Agreements that Reference WCAG 2.0 Wiki page [1] is
>> irrelevant to the WCAG WG. I originally created it to help inform WCAG
>> WG discourse and had thought that the document may have not only fit
>> into the draft charter's [2] statement, "Develop support materials as
>> needed to explain the application of WCAG 2.0 to particular
>> situations" but moreover be useful for the discussion on the topic of
>> WCAG extensions. The legal situation seems to be an underlying
>> rationale for the WCAG WG taking the extension route.
>
> I had not said that it was irrelevant. If you look at the context from
> my previous sentence (truncated in your reply to me), it was that this
> is not within the scope of the WCAG WG's charter. The WCAG WG group is
> currently operating under its existing charter. The draft charter that
> you mentioned is not yet in effect, and it is currently unclear whether
> the phrase you mention will be in the new charter when it does go into
> effect.
>
> The question of how to handle extensions is complex and will need to be
> informed from many angles.
>
> If the WG does get scoped by a new charter to
> more explicitly consider questions around how its work may be written in
> order to facilitate it being taken up in different situations, including
> policy settings, then the group would need to look at relevant
> international information, not only info from the U.S.
>
>> Although the legal situation is not explicitly called out in the draft
>> charter, it seems to be a reality.  In the "WCAG extension" thread
>> Sailesh [3] talked about how "WCAG 2 is a guideline or standard if you
>> will, and is "often incorporated  / referenced into law and that
>> changing WCAG2 by an extension may require changes to such laws too.
>> Wayne mentioned how using extensions would give time for legal changes
>> [4]. WCAG 2.0 is being or has been incorporated into law in various
>> places around the world (for example [5]). The wiki page in fact was
>> an attempt to inform this discussion by documenting how legal
>> settlements are indeed referencing WCAG 2.0. The page includes:
>>
>> * 16 City, County, Village Settlements
>> * 10 Commercial Settlements
>> * 12 Educational Settlements
>> * 2 Other Organization Settlements
>>
>> 22 of those were in the past 6 months. WCAG 2.0 sure seems to have
>> increasing legal implications. The page presents 40 US legal
>> agreements that I am currently aware of. An attorney who has a
>> practice specializing in accessibility contacted me after reading the
>> document to say she knows of more settlements than what is currently
>> listed.
>>
>> Anyway, a repercussion of this legal situation and because of WCAG
>> 2.0's stability and consensus, it appears that the working group can't
>> tweak core WCAG 2.0 without risk. It also seems that this is
>> underlying rationale leading to the proposed approach of WCAG 2.0 +
>> extensions as opposed to a WCAG 2.1 or a WCAG 3.0 approach. Judy, is
>> this correct? If this is off base, what is the main rationale for WCAG
>> taking the extensions route? Modularity? Speed? Something else? Can
>> you please address the questions of "Why not update WCAG?" and "Why
>> extensions?" Intelligent people have been asking. I am in good faith
>> trying to understand and piece things together. Your insight would be
>> most appreciated.
>
> There are many factors to take into account and many perspectives on how
> those fit together so as to move forward on updated Web accessibility
> guidelines. Here are quick thoughts on some of the things that an
> approach of developing WCAG 2.0 normative extensions, followed by
> development of WAI 3.0 (not WCAG 3.0), could help with:
> - Any individual area of updated guidance in the form of a normative
> extension on WCAG 2.0 would likely take significant time to reach
> consensus, yet trying to accomplish that as normative changes on WCAG
> 2.0 itself (a "WCAG 2.1") could take even longer. Focusing on a goal of
> normative extensions might allow more progress sooner for specific areas
> on which consensus can be reached.
> - Even with the amount of forward-compatibility that the WCAG WG worked
> hard to design into WCAG 2.0, when we consider the pace of technology
> change, there will be a need for a deeper rethinking and restructuring
> of accessibility guidance to address future technology evolution. After
> finishing ATAG 2.0 (currently a Proposed Recommendation) and UAAG 2.0
> (which will likely become a WG Note), we need to look at combined needs
> across all three areas, but beyond the scope of just a WCAG 2.1.  If
> WCAG WG were to take on development of a revised WCAG 2.1 rather than
> WCAG 2.0 extensions, we would likely lose ground on starting that
> broader re-think.
>
>> With all of that said, if you still deem the WCAG 2.0 legal settlement
>> documentation irrelevant and not useful to the WCAG WG,
> Again I believe you misread my comment.
>> please accept
>> my sincere apologies and have it removed from the WCAG Wiki (I don't
>> think I have the permissions to do it myself). If the EO Working Group
>> or anyone else finds it useful, they are more than welcome to it. For
>> anyone wanting a stable version of the document, the original is
>> available [6].
>
> Thanks. It can be helpful to coordinate with the WCAG WG Co-Chairs
> (Andrew and Josh) and Team Contact (Michael) as they may sometimes have
> related info or plans.
>
>> Does EO have documentation for which laws around the world reference
>> WCAG 2.0? That may also help inform our discussion on extensions.
>
> Yes EOWG does have documentation on this; it has been out of date but
> they have been starting to update it, and my understanding is that they
> may have some help coming online for that. My initial thought about  the
> page you're developing was that it might be more related to that. A
> strong resource referencing international take-up of WCAG 2.0 (not only
> in policies, but in other settings as well) could be a helpful component
> of increased progress on accessibility. But right now the charters are
> still in flux.
> - Judy
>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Kindest Regards,
>> Laura
>> [1]
>> https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Legal_Settlement_Agreements_that_Reference_WCAG
>> [2] http://www.w3.org/2015/04/draft-wcag-charter
>> [3] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2015JulSep/0108.html
>> [4] https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2015JulSep/0104.html
>> [5] "KHS: Makoto Ueki wants to rejoin the working group, and he felt
>> there would be great interest and attendance for a meeting in Japan
>> because of the new laws going into effect in Japan based on WCAG2...I
>> would like to see most items fall at levels A and AA, since most laws
>> only take those levels."
>> http://www.w3.org/2015/04/07-wai-wcag-minutes.html
>> [6] http://www.d.umn.edu/~lcarlson/wcagwg/settlements/
>>
>> On 7/30/15, Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org> wrote:
>>> As for legal settlement agreements referencing WCAG, that's not in the
>>> scope of the WCAG WG either. There is a policy references page
>>> (currently being updated) that EOWG maintains in support of harmonized
>>> standards uptake; a listing of agreements might perhaps be peripherally
>>> related to that, but we would need to confirm with EOWG before moving it
>>> there and they may also feel that it is out of scope.
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you have questions.
>>>
>>> Thank you,
>>>
>>> - Judy
>>>>> On 7/30/15, Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Jon,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My pleasure.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't have the dates at hand but  I'll put it on my to do list.
>>>>>> Most
>>>>>> are fairly recent.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Kindest Regards,
>>>>>> Laura
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 7/30/15, Gunderson, Jon R <jongund@illinois.edu> wrote:
>>>>>>> Laura,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you for setting up this resource.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Could you possibly add the dates of the settlements?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you again,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Jon
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Laura Carlson [mailto:laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com]
>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2015 1:38 PM
>>>>>>> To: GLWAI Guidelines WG org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
>>>>>>> Subject: New Wiki Page: Legal Settlement Agreements that Reference
>>>>>>> WCAG
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I put up a new Wiki page: Legal Settlement Agreements that Reference
>>>>>>> WCAG.
>>>>>>> It is at:
>>>>>>> https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/Legal_Settlement_Agreements_that_Reference_WCAG
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you have additions, please let me know or edit at will.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Kindest Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Laura
>>> --
>>> Judy Brewer
>>> Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
>>> at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
>>> 32 Vassar St. Room G-526, MIT/CSAIL
>>> Cambridge MA 02149 USA
>>> www.w3.org/WAI/
>
> --
> Judy Brewer
> Director, Web Accessibility Initiative
> at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
> 32 Vassar St. Room G-526, MIT/CSAIL
> Cambridge MA 02149 USA
> www.w3.org/WAI/
>
>


-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Monday, 3 August 2015 12:52:37 UTC