RE: Addressing concern over the words "easy" and "easily available"

I agree with David that the proposed definition of “easily available” (regardless of whether a different term such as “prominently available” is substituted) remains problematic.

Regarding the first item in the definition, I agree that “as wide a scope as possible” is ambiguous and hard to verify.

I don’t understand the second item in the definition – it’s poorly expressed and unclear.

Regarding the third item, I don’t know how “reachable from each screen” would be tested for, since what is on a screen depends in part on screen size, orientation and magnification level.

I think the best solution would be to remove the term and the definition altogether from the normative document so that content authors don’t have to make difficult and subjective judgments about the adequacy of “mechanisms” provided by assistive technologies or other client-side tools. As suggested in the meeting, I think AT developers are better equipped than typical Web application authors in ensuring that their “mechanisms” are appropriate to meet the needs of users. If mechanisms are provided by content authors, there should perhaps be constraints on them, but at this point I don’t know what those ought to be. I can’t think of effective ways of making the definition reliably testable, and there are so many aspects of good user interface design that it can’t address. Perhaps there ought to be metadata for identifying accessibility-related information and accessibility-related user interface components (i.e., those intended by the author to meet accessibility needs).

From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 7:03 AM
To: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Addressing concern over the words "easy" and "easily available"

There was a request by the chairs to document possible options to address concerns over the testability of the word "Easy" and "easily available" in SCs. Here is where they occur in the standard.

The term "easily available" appears in 2.2.7 Interruptions. It has a definition.The term "easy" appears in the first exception for 2.2.6. It does not have a definition, it is followed by a few examples.

Options to address ambiguity:
1) remove the terms
2) switch the term "easily available" with something like "prominent" which is not as subjective, and is has greater testability.
3) regardless of whether the term "easily available" or "prominent" is chosen, the definition will probably need work. The term "with as wide a scope as possible" would be very difficult to test for auditors. How would an external auditor know what is possible for the author?

I think there needs to be concerted effort put into this if the terms and definition is to stay. It will take bandwidth of seveal members. For the term "easy" in 2.2.6 I've made a pull request to remove that instance as it is not testable and there is no definition. The exception seems to work without it.

This analysis is to get the discussion moving. Here are the SC text:

=========

2.2.6 Accessible Authentication
First exception:
·        The authentication process involves basic identifying information to which the user has ***easy*** access, such as name, address, email address and identification or social security number;

=========
2.2.7 Interruptions (Minimum)
A mechanism is easily available<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2FWCAG21%2F%23dfn-easily-available&data=02%7C01%7Cjjwhite%40ets.org%7C7591105e78e54455ab6608d5059782be%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C636421070647294007&sdata=AI4FlKY24%2B2nw%2Fo6DILFANmSoPQqq63LlusbwiSfHKE%3D&reserved=0> to postpone and suppress interruptions and changes in content, unless they are initiated by the user or involve an emergency.

=====
Definition in glossary
easily available (or easily available mode or setting)

one or more of the following are true:

  *   can be set one time with as wide a scope as possible (such as using the standards of the operating system, from ISO 9241-112<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iso.org%2Fiso%2Fcatalogue_detail.htm%3Fcsnumber%3D64840&data=02%7C01%7Cjjwhite%40ets.org%7C7591105e78e54455ab6608d5059782be%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C636421070647294007&sdata=7lkZL9ymLZ7hmjZlAEyy5eJ85Y3Yxdy0MEX1vEd8G%2FI%3D&reserved=0> [[ISO_9241-112]] or GPII<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgpii.net%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cjjwhite%40ets.org%7C7591105e78e54455ab6608d5059782be%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C636421070647294007&sdata=W5Lfr99k8%2B2Dd3l7KqHejxdJgVsSWa0rHs1yUh1nqUc%3D&reserved=0> [GPII<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2FTR%2FWCAG21%2F%23bib-GPII&data=02%7C01%7Cjjwhite%40ets.org%7C7591105e78e54455ab6608d5059782be%7C0ba6e9b760b34fae92f37e6ddd9e9b65%7C0%7C0%7C636421070647294007&sdata=%2BwTIjGmUGS0GssZ0hsjaI1fNxFC93waXJQD04hz9QvE%3D&reserved=0>] when available);
  *   has the option to save or change the setting, where available interoperably, but also for the scope of the set of web pages;
  *   is reachable from each screen where it may be needed, and the path and the control conforms to all of this document.
​============​


Cheers,
David MacDonald



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