RE: A Guide to the "Essential" survey

Hi David,

I agree with Jason here and note that LVTF participants, including myself, have taken the survey and shown good support.  That said, you stated that these are all “normative changes”, but that is a bit subjective considering the existing normative language is completely illogical.  For the 3 you identified:

# UI Component Contrast
> I agree there is a problem, it may be "mostly redundant" but I think something is lost by removing essential

Right now, “essential visual identifiers” means evaluate the criterion for identifiers that don’t conform, so what you perceive is lost is simply a brain tie to the dictionary definition.  I see 2 ways to ease our comfort by seeing the word “essential” there:

1.       Provide plenty of Understanding content that goes into detail about what “identifies” and what doesn’t for typical components.  Glenda is already doing a great job of this and there is a note on the SC to get you started.

2.       Create a normative definition for “visual identifier”.
I would suggest we take option #1 to fix the logic problem, and file a separate issue if #2 is necessary.

# Adapting Text
> 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.

Right now, it says no loss of content or functionality that doesn’t conform, which makes zero sense, so I disagree that the change increases requirements.  Furthermore, the introduction of the word here has a very brief history, and someone has yet to identify a loss that should be considered “essential”.  Until such time, I would reject the need for an exception based on acceptance criteria #6:
“6. Apply to all content unless preconditions for the application of the success criteria are explicitly identified (e.g. "except interruptions involving an emergency")”

# Content on Hover or Focus
> I agree there is a problem, but swapping essential for "pure decoration" is a normative change, there is a difference.

Yes, there is a difference: “essential” things are exceptions that cannot be made to conform (zero sense in context), while “pure decoration” is stuff that can be lost here because it doesn’t have any information or functionality tied to it.  The latter is the true intention here and you can go back to the GitHub comments to see it.  It is meant to say that the additional content (popup, tooltip, etc.) is okay to obscure types of things that fit the “pure decoration” definition exactly, and anything else would fail to meet the user need to see the trigger.  Again this goes back to the acceptance criterion #6 – please identify something that needs to be an exception that isn’t covered by “pure decoration”.

Steve

From: White, Jason J [mailto:jjwhite@ets.org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2017 9:00 AM
To: David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>; Joshue O Connor <josh@interaccess.ie>
Cc: Repsher, Stephen J <stephen.j.repsher@boeing.com>; WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: 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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