Re: Conforming alternative for mobile should not be Desktop

On 29/06/2016 10:45, David MacDonald wrote:
>>If the site is so atrocious, it will also be atrocious to "desktop" users on a desktop/laptop.
>
> Using an accessible large screen site on mobile using VoiceOver or
> Talkback is a much worse experience than an accessible mobile site.
> Users without disabilities happily use the mobile site that cost
> $200,000 to optimize for them. It's like saying,
> "our restaurant is accessible, just wheel around to the back entrance by
> the dumpster and say hello to the chef as you wheel through the kitchen,
> and we'll guide you to your romantic dinner with your partner, like
> everyone else".

The key here though is: can "much worse" be quantified and qualified in 
such a way as to be an accessibility (rather than usability) issue? If 
not, then it cannot be expressed in WCAG in any appropriately testable way.

> It seems to me this position effectively turns our Mobile task force
> work into a "nice to have" set of advice, that can be avoided if the
> author simply provides a link to the conforming desktop site. Can you
> explain to me how that is not true?

The "conforming desktop site" is still beholden by all the SCs that the 
Mobile TF is working on. Things such as making sure it works for touch 
users, touch+AT users, that there's sufficiently large touch/activation 
targets, that orientation isn't locked, etc etc.

Which is why the output of the Mobile TF cannot be seen as 
"mobile-specific" (which, since the idea of making it a "mobile 
extension" has thankfully now been abandoned, it won't), as it does 
apply even for the "desktop" sites.

The requirement of making sure it works on small screens, or whatever 
else comes out of the ongoing work here from mobile, COGA, low-vis etc 
will also still apply to that "desktop" site.

So the key here is not to try and crowbar a "but 'alternate version' 
doesn't really get you out of making your mobile site accessible" into 
the definition (beyond note 8's clarification), but instead to make sure 
we have sufficiently robust (hah) SCs that cover all the aspects you're 
worried about in a general way, so that they'll apply to any site on any 
device, not just "mobile for mobile devices, desktop for desktop devices".

> That is right. The proposed note 8 solves it for me. It clarifies that
> screen views optimized for a different platform are not accessible
> alternatives under this definition, unless they have the same
> functionality.

Good. In that case, this conversation has reached a happy conclusion...

P
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Patrick H. Lauke

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Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2016 10:20:55 UTC