RE: A Guide to the "Essential" survey



From: David MacDonald [mailto:david100@sympatico.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, October 4, 2017 7:46 AM

### User Interface Component Contrast [question 10]
> "essential visual identifiers".... My logic is that saying "essential" is mostly redundant with the word "identifier", i.e. if something visual is identifying the type of component or its state, then it is always essential.

I agree there is a problem, it may be "mostly redundant" but I think something is lost by removing essential ...  I think we should pause on fixing this one, and bring it back to the LVTF, and fix it separately.
[Jason] I don’t think anything valuable is lost by removing “essential”, and I would prefer the discussion to take place in the working group as a whole rather than in a Task Force. The LVTF participants would be welcome and encouraged to contribute, of course, but I think the group as a whole can bring greater expertise to bear on the issue.

### Adapting Text [question 3]
I agree there is a problem, but removing essential is a normative change, that increases the requirement on authors. Now they have to ensure that the fonts etc can be swapped without ANY loss of content or functionality instead of swapping without essential loss...  I think we should pause on fixing this one, and bring it back to the LVTF, and fix it separately.
[Jason] Same comment as above.

### Content on Hover or Focus [question 6]
> The use here is meant to say that decorative content is okay to obscure, so this draft rewords the sentence to link to the definition of "pure decoration" instead.

I agree there is a problem, but swapping essential for "pure decoration" is a normative change, there is a difference. I think we should pause on fixing this one, and bring it back to the LVTF, and fix it separately.
[Jason] My comment is the same as above. I think it is a normative change, but a desirable one.

It was proposed in yesterday’s meeting that we replace “essential” with synonymous expressions, then subsequently make any further normative changes to clarify what it means. I’m not opposed to this in principle, but I am concerned that it would involve two CfCs rather than one and thus consume valuable time – especially if there is agreement to replace “essential” with more precise and better defined concepts in specific instances.
I don’t think any of the proposals for change related to this issue are editorial, except perhaps those that just link to the definition of “essential” but leave the word itself in place. The rest are all substantive.


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Received on Wednesday, 4 October 2017 12:59:56 UTC