RE: Proposal for support personlization AA from John, Chris, Jan and myself

From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 4:31 AM

I don't think "consistency" is a new concept in 2.1.

3.2.4 Consistent Identification: Components that have the same functionality within a set of Web pages are identified consistently. (Level AA)
 ​
​In this case "identification" is used instead of "purpose"​.  At the very least there is
​so much
 overlap, that they would probably have to be merged after August.
[Jason] It seems clear that we’re already seeing differences of opinion (perhaps implicitly) regarding what must be programmatically determined under the new proposal. I agree that, on some interpretations, there is overlap with 3.2.4.
Under the proposal currently before us, “conventional controls” (perhaps better stated as “conventional user interface components” for consistency with the remainder of WCAG) are defined in terms of a list of functions. I think the definition needs to be clarified and that there are ambiguities, as well as potential internationalization concerns, but I won’t digress into that territory for now.
One way of characterizing the requirement is to say that which function on the list is performed by a given UI component can be programmatically determined. That is, for example, if I include a link to a home page (where a link to a home page is one of the controls explicitly included in the list), then the fact that it’s a link to a home page cmust be able to be programmatically determined, on this view of the proposal. There seem to be other views of the proposal whereby “purpose” requires or allows for more, or something other, than programmatic determination of what the control does by reference to the list of conventional controls. On those interpretations, a label or description of what the UI component does would qualify as meeting the success criterion.
I think the narrower interpretation is closer to what Lisa, at least, has been advocating in recent meetings – that the AT must be able to traverse the page and unambiguously identify any controls that belong on the list of “conventional” controls according to the definition.
The lack of clarity in the proposal which can be gleaned from the subsequent mailing list discussion indicates that more work is needed to refine and define the idea.

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