1.3.2 question for shapes/icons alone that are used everywhere now but were not back in 2008

All,

Are icons/shapes with no labels or descriptions a violation of 1.3.2 TODAY?
They were not as prevalent back in 2008 as they are now with today’s graphics usage.
Shape/icons like:
Stars for favorites
Hearts for favorites
Gears for Settings
Shopping carts for, well, shopping carts
X for Close
X within a circle for Close
+ for expand or more
- For collapse or less
Social media icons for Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram Twitter and the lot of them
Arrows pointing down for more sub-menus or expand
Arrows pointing up for collapse back up
Arrows pointing to the right for advance right for carousels or selectable for link list items
Arrows pointing to the left for move to the left in carousels
Colored flags for national language or monetary support for shopping sites

Needing alt text may be 1.1.1 but since they are shapes that would not have instructions they may be teachable items for 1.3.2 for developers.
I don’t see any of the automated testing tools having these in their testing.

Since we do have in F26: “Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.3 due to using a graphical symbol alone to convey information” I think we have a precedent.

Regards,

Alan

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Wayne Dick
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 2:44 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL
Cc: David MacDonald; WCAG; Mike Elledge; Andrew Kirkpatrick; Patrick H. Lauke; ALAN SMITH; Paul Adam
Subject: Re: 1.3.1 question

Hi again,
I forgot to say that I use screen readers every day to read and navigate. Sometimes I just use the screen reader to navigate. When I only have 25 words on the page it is important.
Wayne

On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 11:38 AM, Wayne Dick <wayneedick@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Katie et. al.
The problem may be as simple as refurbishment.
Question: Does a site that fails to identify semantically significant regions meet 1.3.1 today? When the site was launched it did, but today does it? I say yes, until the page undergoes a major change. 

At that point it is new code and needs to be audited for conformance. What passed before no longer passes since there are now techniques to remedy the old accessibility deficit.
The point is this. Is 1.3.1 violated by lack of deterministic identifiers? Regarding headers and footers that are semantically void, the answer is yes. That is binding, how it is analyzed in light of new technology must change for WCAG to be a living document.
Here is the failure. 
A site the uses new technologies to improve its general functionality, user interface or appearance and fails to correct old deficits that can fixed with current technology does not conform to WCAG after the general changes have been made. This applies to any success criterion that could not be addressed when the site met conformance originally.
This does not rest on techniques, it is simply a matter of a new site (with an established URL) that no longer meets a normative success criteria.
I think that does it.
Wayne



On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 10:57 AM, Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com> wrote:
Wayne,
 
While this makes perfect sense, and in some governments and elsewhere this model is used…WCAG itself cannot require this. Techniques are INFORMATIVE and are not required – nor should they be. They present options for how to meet the requirements of the SC.
 
​​​​​
 
 
 
* katie *
 
Katie Haritos-Shea 
Principal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)
 
Cell: 703-371-5545 | ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton, VA | LinkedIn Profile | Office: 703-371-5545
 
From: Wayne Dick [mailto:wayneedick@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 1:47 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com>
Cc: David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>; WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; Mike Elledge <melledge@yahoo.com>; Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>; Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>; ALAN SMITH <alands289@gmail.com>; Paul Adam <paul.adam@deque.com>
Subject: Re: 1.3.1 question
 
Use the Refurbishment Model.
For years buildings have been exempt form architectural barrier upgrades if they met requirements at some point. The next time the building is refurbished it is brought up to code. This is to protect institutions that adopt building codes early from endless change.
Google and sites like it should follow this model. Next time they change anything on their site, they come up to conformance. The techniques were not available in 2008 to meet 1.3.1 for headers and footers.  They are now.
Next time a page is upgraded, fix it.
Wayne 
 
 
On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com> wrote:
David,
 
That is a good idea, but, I am thinking of the conformance issue overall – in that case, even though Techniques aren’t relative to conformance – I would like to see the Update Model be consistent, across what we do….
 
So in that vein, I would like to say that Techniques might best be mapped to WCAG or WCAG/UAAG/ATAG specific versions, and then attach what we call additional  *Best Practices* to the Requirements (Success Criteria) and supporting materials to the NEXT version of the standard – as we see them become relevant while folks are still conforming to an older version. Then as folks begin to conform to the new version, they will or may have already implemented those Best Practices, and will more rapidly be able to conform to the new version of WCAG or WCAG/UAAG/ATAG.
 
​​​​​Does that make sense?
 
 
 
* katie *
 
Katie Haritos-Shea 
Principal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)
 
Cell: 703-371-5545 | ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton, VA | LinkedIn Profile | Office: 703-371-5545
 
From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca] 
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 12:38 PM
To: Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; Mike Elledge <melledge@yahoo.com>; Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>; Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>; ALAN SMITH <alands289@gmail.com>; Paul Adam <paul.adam@deque.com>
Subject: Re: 1.3.1 question
 
Hi Katie
 
Do you think creating a date field for failure techniques could work? This might allow us to post failures as solutions become available.  Companies that have sites before the date don't need to worry about these failures, whereas new sites would be expected to pay attention to them. Of course WCAG WG would have nothing to do with enforcement... but it would give us a way to write failures without disadvantaging old sites.
 
We could do this in the "Applicability" section. "This failure applies to content created after MM/DD/YYYY."
 
 We will run into this situation in the next standard where techniques are up to date but there missing failures as things on the web change. I think this might address our original intent in WCAG 2 of having an ever green standard.
 
On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 11:51 AM, Katie Haritos-Shea GMAIL <ryladog@gmail.com> wrote:
David,
 
I agree that Techniques can and should be written to address these issues today, as they are *one possible way* to achieve the outcome the Success Criteria calls for. 
 
But you are correct, we need to wait  before making any Failures until we have provide new Requirements, in an new standard version, that specifically states that they address these technologies. IMHO….
 
​​​​​
 
 
 
* katie *
 
Katie Haritos-Shea 
Principal ICT Accessibility Architect (WCAG/Section 508/ADA/AODA)
 
Cell: 703-371-5545 | ryladog@gmail.com | Oakton, VA | LinkedIn Profile | Office: 703-371-5545
 
From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca] 
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 11:28 AM
To: w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Cc: Mike Elledge <melledge@yahoo.com>; Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>; Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>; ALAN SMITH <alands289@gmail.com>; Paul Adam <paul.adam@deque.com>
Subject: Re: 1.3.1 question
 
​As per my first email in this thread, ​most of us agree that WCAG as currently written can't move the goal posts very easily as new great accessible technologies like ARIA are invented, for sites that previously met WCAG. 
 
But I think Paul's fresh eyes do point out something I've thought about for a while as we do requirements gathering for WCAG NEXT. And perhaps even something we can do now... 
 
WCAG 2 was designed to be every green. The success criteria were carefully written in order to ensure that as new technologies were invented, that they could be incorporated into WCAG. For the most part that has happened. We created Silverlight techniques, WAI ARIA techniques, and HTML5 techniques etc.  none of which were mature when WCAG2 was created.  However, our failure techniques have not kept pace with these new ways of doing things because we didn't want to create a situation where an old site that met WCAG no longer meets WCAG because a new failure was introduc
 
Naturally we want people to use the new technologies where there was no previous good solution. For instance, on new web sites
- No page that has visually distinct headers, footers, Nav bars, main content, and asides should be without an ACCESSIBLE NAME  (and/or ACCESSIBLE DESCRIPTION) for those sections.
- No link text should have an ambiguous ACCESSIBLE NAME  (or ACCESSIBLE DESCRIPTION), so the days of click here, read more, showing up in links lists should be a thing of the past. 
 
HTML5 and WAI ARIA have solved these problems with new HTML elements, roles, aria-label, aria-labelledby etc...
 
So how can we ensure that new sites do take advantages of these new ways to solve old problems that previously were just hacked, or mostly not done at all?
 
I'd like to brainstorm a proposal. What if we create a date field on failure techniques? Agencies, legislature, and governments can use these date fields to determine if a certain failure is applicable based on when the content was created. The government of Ontario is a precident for this. They have a date on the AODA, because they understand that solvent companies create new web sites every few years. So they require the new sites meet WCAG. if we had date fields on our  new failures, then if the site was built after the failure was created it would fail SC 1.3.1 if there wansn't an ACCEISBLE NAME or DESCRIPTION on a section of  a page, or could fail that LEARN MORE link that didn't reference the description heading or provide an aria-label or title etc...
 
What do you think... could it work for WCAG NEXT, or even this version.?
 
On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 9:46 AM, ALAN SMITH <alands289@gmail.com> wrote:
Mike,
 
I appreciate you sending this out. I had originally replied to the emails regarding 1.3.1 and landmarks about the use of landmarks/regions and their labeling  as a way to meet 1.3.2 (by these defining and providing a meaningful sequence to the page/information structure) as this was something I ran into and had be asked about.
Since it is not listed in WCAG 2.0 1.3.2 and I agree that 1.3.2 can be subjective, I thought it warranted a question to the team.
 
Best. 
 
Alan
 
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
 
From: Mike Elledge
Sent: Monday, April 4, 2016 9:37 AM
To: Andrew Kirkpatrick; Patrick H. Lauke; w3c-wai-gl@w3.org
Subject: Re: 1.3.1 question
 
Hi All--
 
I'd like to understand better how persons who use screen readers feel about this issue. With WebAIM surveys indicating increased use of headings and regions I worry that we may be underestimating their benefit. I recognize that the application of 1.3.2 can be subjective, that flexibility in presenting data is important, and that bringing legacy applications into compliance can be time-consuming. Ultimately our objective has to be how to best serve the needs of users, however.
 
Thoughts?
 
Mike
 
On Monday, April 4, 2016 8:21 AM, Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com> wrote:
 
Patrick,
Thanks for chiming in, and welcome to the group!

Thanks of course to everyone who is contributing their opinions here, I’m just singling Patrick out as he just joined the WG two hours ago… :)

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility and Standards
Adobe 

akirkpat@adobe.com
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility


On 4/4/16, 06:54, "Patrick H. Lauke" <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:

>Apologies for jumping straight in here after only having been officially 
>nominated/joined...but as this whole discussion around 1.3.1 was the 
>trigger that made me officially join, here's what I've just sent as 
>comment to the survey https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/5April2016_misc/
>
>(with further apologies as this was probably already 
>touched-on/discussed here):
>
>Landmarks are not required. "Landmarks are *a* technique to provide 
>information/structure. They cannot be required (nor can any other 
>specific technique/implementation) as at the time WCAG 2.0 was 
>formalised they weren't even in existence/supported, to my knowledge. 
>Claiming they are would retrospectively fail sites that up until now 
>passed on this point.
>
>More generally, in my view there is no hard requirement to always having 
>to identify landmarks on every single page, in every single document. 
>Key here is "information important for comprehension will be perceivable 
>to all". Is every instance of a fairly clearly defined footer (perhaps 
>with a heading, a list of links to Ts&Cs, privacy policy, a copyright 
>notice) completely non-understandable to a user who cannot perceive its 
>styling? Will real users be confused by a lack of <footer> element or 
>relevant ARIA role? Further, is a role="region" (another sufficient 
>technique for 1.3.1) then NOT acceptable compared to role="contentinfo"?
>
>IF you determine that it is important to identify explicitly which part 
>of the page is the header, which is the footer, which is the main; IF 
>you don't deem it understandable enough for real users if these are 
>simply happening sequentially; IF you deem the structure of the overall 
>page so complex that a real user who can't visually perceive the page 
>structure would be confused/unable to understand it otherwise; THEN 
>something needs to be in place that further clarifies this structure. 
>you can choose aria landmarks, or aria regions, or headings, or some 
>other implementation that may not have even been dreamed up/documented 
>in the non-normative techniques document. the HOW is not important. what 
>matters is the end result: will a real user be less confused / 
>understand the overall structure of the page better than before. jumping 
>from this to "WCAG requires aria landmarks" is reaching.
>
>P
>-- 
>Patrick H. Lauke
>
>www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
>http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
>twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
>