RE: DPUB Set of Web Pages

Hi Gregg

As I’ve hinted in other emails I’m less sure of all of the reasons to exclude them.

I think that one reason was that it was felt that the “published together” requirement for being part of a set, and the exclusion in Note 1 led to doubts about whether anyone could categorically state that any collection of documents would meet the set of documents definition:


a)       At the time the claim to be a set was made;

b)      At the time someone evaluates that claim;

c)       Any subsequent time.

Because Note 1 could be interpreted as meaning that a soon as there is an incremental update to one member of the set of documents the set of documents ceased to exist.

There were probably other arguments – but I don’t recall them.

Best regards

Mike

From: Gregg C Vanderheiden [mailto:greggvan@umd.edu]
Sent: 23 November 2016 17:18
To: Michael Pluke <Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com>
Cc: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>; GLWAI Guidelines WG org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: DPUB Set of Web Pages

RE software —  Mike has a good description below.     In software it is often true that just part of the “interaction context” changes due to an action ( a new tool bar appears for example) (or you show or hide bits of the interface) (or interface pieces appear based on what you are doing).   As a result there are in almost infinite number of “contexts” that might exist for some programs.       One can easily apply the concepts if one wants to — but you can’t test it  since “it” is so dynamic.    So we ended up having to say apply it as ‘sets of software’  instead of applying it within a single piece of software.    (The same happens with web apps — but the problem doesn't arise since the definition of Web page is based on URL ).     Sets of software are rare- but do exist.    So the US applied WCAG to these sets of software - but the EN 301 549 decided to drop the rules because the occurrences were rare.      I personally agreed that we normally wouldn't create a rule for something that rare - but that there was no reason to ‘break up the set’  when there were cases - although rare.


For documents — I have never understood why they were excluded.   If the documents have links — and the documents are indeed a set as defined in WCAG2ICT - -then meeting the provisions are no problem.  If the technology does not support links - then it has a hard time meeting any of the guidelines.       Do you remember Mike what their concerns were?

g


Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu<mailto:greggvan@umd.edu>



On Nov 23, 2016, at 11:33 AM, Michael Pluke <Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com<mailto:Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com>> wrote:

Hi Alistair

I recall the problems with matching the set of Web pages into software more clearly (as that is something I am more familiar with) than the issues for documents, but I suspect that the issues may have been similar.

In software the general feeling was that accessibility issues relating to repeated blocks of content, locating things within a set of things, repeated navigation mechanisms, and the identification of things were problems across things like multiple windows, dialog boxes, etc. within a program (as well as between programs). We tried for weeks (months?) to agree a way to identify these entities so that we could map them to the Web page concept. A popular candidate was to call these things “interaction contexts” – but we couldn’t agree a robust enough version of this concept that was implementation independent.

The decision not to apply the WCAG2ICT set of Web page-based proposals to documents was primarily taken by those in my team who were very familiar with the range of different electronic document technologies (including one member who worked for a major document technology company). I didn’t have such familiarity with the technologies, so I went along with the expert judgement of those that had it (and the general approval of this approach in the widespread reviewing of EN 301 549). But I think that the issue was probably similar, no consistent way of defining the elements of an electronic document that could consistently be mapped to a Web page across all different document technologies.

Best regards

Mike

From: Alastair Campbell [mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com]
Sent: 23 November 2016 15:43
To: Michael Pluke <Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com<mailto:Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com>>
Cc: 'WCAG' <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: DPUB Set of Web Pages

Mike wrote:
> the consensus opinion was that applying 2.4.1, 2.4.5, 3.2.3 and 3.2.4 to documents using the “set of documents” definition did not capture the key accessibility needs

Hi Mike,

Do you remember what the issues were? It would help if we knew so that we can overcome the problems.

Perhaps it was because that the guidelines said that if you have navigation it should be consistent, but it didn’t require navigation? (e.g. 3.2.3).

Thanks,

-Alastair


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