Re: New SC relating to notifications of content change (was Re: Some thinking around the orientation discussion)

I think this is essential - but I think it is already covered.

If not - then it would need to be clarified in connection with conformance rather than as another SC. 

If this isn’t obvious/clear already (and evidently it isnt) then  I THINK it could be clarified in Understanding WCAG 2.0 — and be done immediately with the next publication of that document.     

 I and Loretta and David and others can confirm that it was the intent and understanding of the group that if it changed - it should remain accessible. 


does this help?



gregg

> On May 6, 2016, at 8:23 AM, White, Jason J <jjwhite@ets.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Patrick H. Lauke [mailto:redux@splintered.co.uk]
>> Sent: Friday, May 06, 2016 4:22 AM
>> 
>> I think WCAG currently lacks an SC that essentially says something along the
>> lines of "When content/structure/functionality is changed dynamically (either
>> automatically or as a result of a user interaction), ensure that this change is
>> conveyed to the user" (probably single or double A).
> 
> 
> This is an interesting idea. My initial reaction was to propose that it should say "can be programmatically determined", but it isn't clear to me under what circumstances such a criterion would fail to be satisfied. Whenever elements which are reflected in the tree constructed for an accessibility API are updated, the change should be propagated to the API automatically by the user agent.
> 
> What ARIA live regions achieve is to notify the assistive technology that the user should be informed of the change, and I think this is closer to what is needed. However, not all changes merit this treatment. For example, a screen reader user could be overwhelmed and distracted by rapidly updating content, such as high-volume communication in a text-based chat application, especially while trying to write or to review a message. I suspect the same is true of rapidly updating share market prices, social network messages, sports scores and similar examples that have been discussed over the years, where the user is trying to interact with other content in the same Web application.
> 
> Thus it seems clear that the challenge lies in defining which changes ought to be flagged as significant enough to be conveyed to the user via an assistive technology. Requiring them actually to be conveyed (rather than designated as important) is asking too much, since this can depend on factors beyond the control of the content author, such as whether an AT is in use and what it supports. However, the author can certainly use ARIA, focus changes and possibly other techniques to influence what is drawn to the user's attention.
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> There are two open questions here: which changes should be identified as important enough to be conveyed to the user, and what exactly is the content author required to do? One could require, for example, that such changes can be programmatically distinguished from other changes occurring in the content, so that the assistive technology can determine which changes to attend to. This seems closer to what is wanted, but it still doesn't clearly delineate the relevant category of changes.
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