Re: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.

Although the issue was closed in github, I've put more comments on this 
topic there since the context is clearer and discussion has been ongoing 
https://github.com/w3c/wcag21/issues/30

Michael Gower
IBM Accessibility
Research

1803 Douglas Street, Victoria, BC  V8T 5C3
gowerm@ca.ibm.com
voice: (250) 220-1146 * cel: (250) 661-0098 *  fax: (250) 220-8034



From:   "lisa.seeman" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>
To:     Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu>
Cc:     "public-cognitive-a11y-tf" <public-cognitive-a11y-tf@w3.org>, 
"GLWAI Guidelines WG org" <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Date:   2017-02-20 05:48 AM
Subject:        Re: proposed change for simple words in labels etc.



Thank you Gregg. I think we are getting closer

Note that the Sc is only for instructions, labels, navigational elements, 
and error messages which require a response to continue. 

SO there is no need to build a whole website along these lines. (That 
would only be a AAA conformance level)

 Also if  you can comply by using a title tag or coga-easylang, will make 
it much easier and less restrictive 

I agree we will need a better term or clear definition of current context. 
hopefully then we will get there.

Any suggestions for reworking the current context part?

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter




---- On Sun, 19 Feb 2017 19:40:13 +0200 Gregg C 
Vanderheiden<greggvan@umd.edu> wrote ---- 
Simple, clear, and common words: Use the the most common 1500 words or 
phrases or, provide words, phrases or abbreviations that are the are 
most-common form to refer to the concept in the current context.


This is a very interesting definition.  By adding context — it makes 
content self adjust.   For example — a physics site could have physics 
terms on it - which would clearly not be plain language. 

My only concern as an author would be that several key things are not 
defined.

1)  what does “current context” mean.      If my website is the current 
context — it means everything passes because those are the terms in my 
context.    If the context is ‘science websites’  then I do not know what 
the most common terms are for them — nor do I know what the definition of 
‘science website’ is.   (That is — if you define current context as being 
X context  then  X needs to be defined — and I need to know what the 
common words are for that context. 

2) the most common 1500 words includes lots of prepositions, and articles 
(Most or all of them)  but only a small percentage of nouns.    Very hard 
to write a website with only the most common 1500 words.    (I did word 
frequency studies in my earlier years) 


I think the approach is clever — but still leads to an untestable SC since 
there is no way for the author  (or for testers) to know what “current 
context” means.         (and you can’t write WCAG with the most common 
1500 words) 


Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu



On Feb 19, 2017, at 3:33 AM, lisa.seeman <lisa.seeman@zoho.com> wrote:

Hi Folks

Continuing the conversation on simple language, to address concern with 
testability (as user testing is not acceptable)  I want to suggest the 
following change to the clause on common words:

Change:
Simple, clear, and common words: Use words or phrases that are 
most-frequently used for the current context, unless it will result in a 
loss of meaning or clarity. This includes not using abbreviations, words, 
or phrases, unless they are the common form to refer to concepts for 
beginners. Where word frequencies are known for the context, they can be 
used.

to:

Simple, clear, and common words: Use the the most common 1500 words or 
phrases or, provide words, phrases or abbreviations that are the are 
most-common form to refer to the concept in the current context.


The scope is instructions, labels, navigational elements, and error 
messages which require a response to continue.

 Technique would include: 
Using a title tag to provide a simple language equivalent
Using the coga-easylang attribute (prefered)
Providing extra text via personalization semantics.
Using simple words
Technology support includes: word frequency generator for a given context, 
(reads the URI's list and generates a word frequency list), existing word 
frequency lists, checker to test that words are in the most 

There are also a list of exceptions that is quite long - issues 30 - and 
we are proposing to add a exception for long instructions (as per previous 
email) We could add an exception for user testing, but amazingly that is 
controversial. 

The thinking is: the most common 1500 words is really trivial for testing 
tools to find and generate a warning. However using the most comment form 
to refer to something in the current context will, in this scope , take 
care of  the clarity issue and is also  testable with the tools above. 

please do not bring up issues that are addressed in the exceptions or are 
out of the scope.

 

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter