RE: should we be trying to include all disabilities equally?

From: Michael Pluke [mailto:Mike.Pluke@castle-consult.com]
Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2017 10:17 AM

I’m not sure that this should be the question. I think a survey would not prove anything. I’d be utterly astonished if many (or any) would suggest that WCAG 2.1 should exclude cognitive disabilities from its scope!

I think that everyone would like WCAG to address as many accessibility barriers as possible, irrespective of disability.
[Jason] Making the Web “cross-disability accessible” has been the focus of WCAG from the very beginning in 1997, and even before then when the Trace Center compiled the guidelines that were submitted to the W3C at the start of the WCAG development process. I don’t think anyone is now proposing to reduce this scope. At least, I haven’t read or heard any such proposal.
Writing high-quality, efficacious and reliably testable proposals to address the needs of people with learning and cognitive disabilities beyond what we already have in WCAG is difficult. These difficulties are not new to the working group. They were encountered, as I recall, in the development of WCAG 1.0, and definitely received substantial attention in the 2.0 process. There are reasons why WCAG 2.0 provides as it does in Principle 3 and relevant parts of Principle 2, for example.
Let’s not confuse the challenges of creating a high-quality scpecification with an intention to reduce the scope of WCAG. The difficulties are real, should not be underestimated, but remain surmountable – even if some of them can’t be addressed until Silver.

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