Re: Proposal to get out of the techniques business on WCAG.NEXT

​Continuing with the advantages of "getting out of the techniques business"

- we can focus on writing a great standard.​
- we won't take 10 years to write the next version
- the public can't complain WCAG is too long.
-  Countries, jurisdictions, courts,  etc. can't limit developers to OUR
"sufficient techniques" which are simply examples of one way to do it.
- we can go out and compete with our a11y pros, we won't burn out and have
this weird feeling that we work without pay for 5 years writing techniques
that are considered part of the standard by

What does everyone think?


On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 3:04 PM, David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> Hi All
>
> CSUN has finished. I enjoyed following it on Twitter, mostly. There was a
> Tweet from a talk that went out:
>
>  "WCAG is about 1/3 of a mile long, when printed, I want to bungee jump
> off WCAG".
>
> Whether or not it was an accurate quote, I think it is a perception worth
> exploring. Its' a familiar criticism of WCAG, that it is "2000 pages long"
> Attempts to try to say "no it's 36 pages printed with LOTS of help" seems
> to be drowned out.
>
> Personally, I'd like to explore this perception that "WCAG is too long"
> which I've heard for years, and offer a way forward on WCAG.NEXT and/or the
> extensions.
>
> In the early days of WCAG2 and WCAG1, our committee and a small group of
> peripheral colleagues were the only ones who knew how to make the web
> accessible so it was necessary to document techniques along with the
> standards. Today, things are different:
>
> - We have a robust industry of accessibility professionals writing books,
> blogs, tutorials, and making a good living doing so.
> - We have a robust EO group working along side us providing wonderful
> guidance on WCAG to the world.
> - We have orgs like the Canada Gov. saying developers can ONLY use OUR
> techniques to meet WCAG, which limits developers
> - We have limited internal resources on our committee because we are busy
> with our careers helping people meet WCAG, and don't have time for
> techniques. (and feeding a baby in my case).
>
> Given this change in context, I think it is worth considering a new way
> forward for our future work. So here it is.
>
> I think we should get out of the techniques business.
>
> There I said it.
>
> We can write Success criteria, Guidelines, principles, and offer a (short)
> Understanding document for each new Success Criteria to help folks
> understand it. We may include in the Understanding a couple of examples,
> and of course we have to prove that each SC can be met. But lets stop
> writing Techniques, and let the world know we don't do that. We are a
> standards group. Here's the advantages:
>
> Then when we are done, people won't be able to say "It's too long".
>
>
>
>
>