RE: Proposal for moving COGA SC forward

I’m interested to understand what these pillars might look like. I’ve many times argued that I think that several of the multi-part/multi-bulleted COGA SCs look more like a new WCAG guideline (the overall scope of the draft SC) with several underlying SCs represented by the different bullets (or parts). We know that WCAG guidelines are not meant to be precise or testable, it is only the SCs below it that are.

I think that it is because we are trying to sell these hybrid guideline/multi-SC proposals as SCs that we hit quite so many testability issues. I suspect several of the objections about untestability often relate to the guideline-like parts of this hybrid construction.

If we could isolate the potential new guidelines (probably mostly under the “understandable” principle), we would hopefully be allowed to add those to WCAG 2.1 (as there are no testing-related penalties associated with them). We could then look to see which of the bullets/parts that lie underneath the guideline might be robust enough to include in 2.1 and proceed with these. All the other bullets/parts could appear in some form in the supplemental document. If, at a later date, testable SCs related to these bullets/parts can be identified they could easily be added into future versions of WCAG – and they would already have a guideline under which they could sit.

If this way of viewing our work is accepted, we would be looking for those very narrow and precisely scoped items for trying to get into WCAG 2.1. Every time I have tried to identify these small wins, they have been worked on and developed to increase their scope (a laudable aim but perhaps a self-defeating strategy). We’ve never dared to proceed with a nice simple SC proposal because we continue to aim for the stars.

Maybe its time to bite the bullet and try to get a few small wins rather than continue with several bold failures?

Best regards

Mike

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick [mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com]
Sent: 24 May 2017 19:33
To: Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu>
Cc: w3c-waI-gl@w3. org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Proposal for moving COGA SC forward

As I see it, a “pillar” is a somewhat theoretical construct, but ultimately there would need to be a guideline that is aligned with each of the pillars for COGA support.

The guideline may exist already, or it may need to be made. In the COGA roadmap document there are eight tables of user needs, some of which are task-specific like “authentication” and others are very broad like “simple and clear interface”. We will be looking at these to see what can be reused, as well as whether these are covered by an existing guideline or not.

This is quite similar to the work that the Mobile TF has done, resulting in additional guidelines being suggested.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe

akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>
http://twitter.com/awkawk

From: Gregg Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu<mailto:greggvan@umd.edu>>
Date: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 at 14:21
To: Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: Re: Proposal for moving COGA SC forward

it is not clear what you mean by Pillars

The standard has informative guidelines and normative SC — which are used to determine conformance.

What is a Pillar?   Is it normative?  is it informative?

can you give an example of one — and where it would go in WCAG?

g

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



On May 24, 2017, at 11:18 AM, Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>> wrote:

We’ve been talking about ways to encourage the inclusion of success criteria that benefit users with cognitive or learning disabilities in WCAG 2.1.  The SC proposed by COGA are not going to all make it into WCAG 2.1 due to a variety of concerns ranging from testability to lack of working group time to discuss all proposals. Unfortunately for end users with disabilities, all of the SC proposed are designed to address real problems faced by some users and without the SC being incorporated into WCAG 2.1 the users are likely to continue to face barriers.

Of course, this is also true for low-vision and mobile SC proposals, but the issue is more acute for COGA as the SC proposals are much more numerous and we want to help strategize on how to focus the efforts of the group on a smaller set of COGA SC. With the supplementary guidance document, we will be able to provide additional best practice-level suggestions to improve access for users with cognitive disabilities, but we still want to have a core set of items in WCAG 2.1.

We are thinking about defining a set of "pillars of cognitive accessibility" in WCAG 2.1 and then expanding on them in the supplemental guidance. The pillars would likely be based on ideas from the COGA Roadmap and Gap Analysis document (https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/gap-analysis/#roadmap---tables-of-user-needs<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Frawgit.com%2Fw3c%2Fcoga%2Fmaster%2Fgap-analysis%2F%23roadmap---tables-of-user-needs&data=02%7C01%7C%7C2a805808aae3407fd5b408d4a2d1c58b%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636312469223990412&sdata=IeGrM93cQ%2FwgPty33yqMZ6t1QbISURKj71%2FDbvcfaIE%3D&reserved=0>) and would provide a structure for 6-8 WCAG 2.1 SC and the additional guidance within the supplementary document would follow the same pattern.

This will require some additional work on the part of the COGA TF and from this group as the current proposals may not fit precisely with the pillars. We would be looking to draw from the SC proposals made earlier but only include parts that directly relate to the applicable pillar and that we think can pass the WG consensus process. Remaining concepts from the SC proposals would be targeted for inclusion in the supplemental guidance document.

We wanted to see if the WG thinks this approach could work and would support us in making sure we can increase the chance that we have a good core of improvements for COGA in WCAG 2.1. Please let us know if you have any thoughts or concerns.

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe

akirkpat@adobe.com<mailto:akirkpat@adobe.com>
http://twitter.com/awkawk<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fawkawk&data=02%7C01%7C%7C2a805808aae3407fd5b408d4a2d1c58b%7Cfa7b1b5a7b34438794aed2c178decee1%7C0%7C0%7C636312469223990412&sdata=kHrx6JgE8N%2FVfwDMZ3gcVtkFFedIqORIqhKHWfaJFOs%3D&reserved=0>

________________________________