Re: Extension conflict/compatibility requirement

Hi Josh and all,

Kathy astutely pointed out in last week’s teleconference [1] that
people with disabilities may have opposing needs. For example, high
contrast isn't good for certain people with cognitive or learning
disabilities. David perceptively talked about how developers will just
throw up their hands if extensions conflict with each other. It was
suggested that conforming alternatives could address most of the
conflicts but James wisely said testing would be a nightmare.

I agree with all of these observations.

One size doesn't always fit all. However, to get extension acceptance
and uptake from the individuals and organizations that implement
and/or use WCAG such as Web designers and developers, policy makers,
purchasing agents, teachers, and students, extension conflicts should
not be allowed. Moreover, if conflicts are allowed between extensions,
I suspect it will lead to turmoil in the accessibility community
between the very user groups that the extensions are trying to help.

So what can we do? Accessibility is essentially dealing with diversity.

Josh, I wonder, what ways exist for technology to provide
personalization and customization of content to deal with diversity of
users needs while at the same time eliminating extension conflicts in
order to get extension buy-in from the individuals and organizations
that use WCAG? What schemes exist or can exist for technology to
afford users a method to receive information in accordance to their
needs and capabilities?

GPII [2] is pioneering interoperable personalization schemes. Lisa and
the Cognitive Task Force have been working on a proposal for an
extension, where personalization is key. Could something such as these
schemes help us avoid and eliminate conflicts? Is possible, say for in
Kathy’s example, for users to receive whatever contrast they need via
customization? Or is that wishful thinking? Perhaps Gregg V and Lisa
could talk about feasibility.

Kindest Regards,
Laura

[1] http://www.w3.org/2015/10/13-wai-wcag- minutes.html
[2] http://gpii.net/


On 10/16/15, Joshue O Connor <josh@interaccess.ie> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> On the working group call this week there were a couple of interesting
> points raised regarding extensions that require further discussion. We
> also wish to engage other people on the list who were not on the call,
> and make sure that they are aware of some of the finer points and able
> to express an opinion here on the list.
>
> To sum up, two main 'themes' in our extension framework are extension
> compatibility, and the need to reduce, minimise or indeed remove any
> conflict between extensions.
>
> NOTE: As a thought experiment, one possible way to do that would be to
> have a 'MonoSpec' extension which combined the output from all TFs
> (Mobile/Cognitive/Low Vision) in a single spec. Potentially where care
> is taken to ensure that these extension SCs are fully compatible with
> each other there may be less 'conflict'.
>
> The 'PolySpec' extension approach would involve taking the SCs from each
> group and placing them in separate docs that conformance claims would be
> written against individually.
>
> While in principle, the contents of these docs would be more or less the
> same, the potential for conflict if there is only a 'MonoSpec' may be
> reduced. If only because a valid conformance claim would need to be
> written against it in toto. Also this approach would mean that devs
> would have to satisfy the success criteria in the MonoSpec fully, even
> if some are outside of the developers immediate area of interest. So in
> short could be a good way of conditioning developers to consider other
> user needs - rather than thinking "I need to make my content conform to
> just mobile, or low vision success criteria etc".
>
> Regarding extension conflict, in our current draft 'WCAG Extensions
> Framework' document it states: [2]
>
> "Ensure that all WCAG extensions are compatible with each other
> Extensions must not conflict with each other. This is important for the
> purpose of enabling content providers to implement support for more than
> one extension. For this reason will be critically important for group
> members working on different extensions to maintain good communication
> about extension work in progress."
>
> There are a couple of questions/points that arise:
>
> 1) Should we explicitly call out the need within the framework that
> there must NOT be conflict between extensions? It has been pointed out
> (rather practically) that it just may not be possible to avoid conflict
> with our extensions.
>
> 2) If we do explicitly call out this issue in our framework, it may help
> focus working group attention on carefully finding where there are
> conflicts in extensions (between there own group and others).
>
> 3) On a more granular level how do you think the framework should even
> define conflict?
>
> 4) Obviously while spec fragmentation is a concern inherent in the
> extensions discussion a final thought is the basic question; Is conflict
> always inherently bad? Can positive conflict or friction between various
> user requirements result in the end in better content, better user
> experience etc?
>
> What do you think?
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2015/10/13-wai-wcag-minutes.html
> [2] https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/WCAG_Extensions_Framework

-- 
Laura L. Carlson

Received on Monday, 19 October 2015 12:13:16 UTC