Trying to be clear - was making the draft for CR accurate

Hi Andrew.

I hope i is OK if I am clear as I can be.


 I understood that our mandate in 2.1 was to address cognitive, low vision and mobile. So were as this language was reasonable at the begining,  it became less and less accurate as the draft developed. (Until the last few weeks, it looked like  there would be at least some reasonable accommodation for people with cognitive disabilities in 2.1. )


My opinion is that following our current draft does not provide minimal accommodation for people with cognitive and learning disabilities. I can not speak for the task force but for myself, I do not believe that anyone who wants to make content usable for people with learning and cognitive disabilities should be looking at these specifications.   I would not be surprised if ADA law suits against WCAG compliant sites would win.


The first step in addressing a problem is knowing that you have one. Unless we know we have done our mandate I do not see why anything will improve for 2.1 or silver.


I think our credibility is at risk if we say we do things we do not do,  and if we keep this language we will simply fail CR. I am ok working on it after we go to CR but I do not think this is editorial. We need to change the scope of the specification to fit what we have done. Maybe Michael can let us know if changing the scope is editorial. 


All that being said I know a lot of people on this list have made a huge effort, and I do not want to minimise that. Maybe it is just our timelines focus or our processes but we have not done what we set out to do. 


All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter





---- On Thu, 25 Jan 2018 18:34:34 +0200 Andrew Kirkpatrick<akirkpat@adobe.com> wrote ---- 

      Lisa,
  
 Thanks for raising this on the list. I have a few thoughts on this that I think are worth considering. 
  
 This language has been part of WCAG since WCAG 2.0, this is not new language in the abstract.
  
 I do not believe that WCAG 2.0 fully addresses accessibility concerns for any group of users with disabilities, including people that with cognitive disabilities, and the same is true for WCAG 2.1. 
  
 I am concerned that we aren’t possibly setting up the expectation that WCAG 2.1 is somehow taking steps backwards in accessibility. If the language changes to say “begins to address learning disabilities and cognitive limitations at conformance level AAA” it may lead people to that conclusion, and indicate that there is nothing in the AA success criteria that benefits this group of users. Does the COGA TF believe that there is nothing at all in WCAG 2.0 that provides benefits?
  
 The text that is proposed to be changed is editorial. We could change it now, but to be clear, we can also change it during the CR period.  
  
 What I would like to propose is that the Working Group have a discussion about how this text could be changed when we have more than two hours to make that change. Since this was just discussed on the COGA call this morning (https://www.w3.org/2018/01/25-coga-minutes.html) it is definitely a late-arriving change request, and one that can be addressed during CR. Can we commit to having the Working Group have a collective discussion about this language and arrive at consensus language early in the CR period?
  
   Thanks,
 
  AWK
 
   
 
  Andrew Kirkpatrick
 
  Group Product Manager, Accessibility
 
  Adobe 
 
   
 
  akirkpat@adobe.com
 
 
 http://twitter.com/awkawk
  
  From: "lisa.seeman@zoho.com" <lisa.seeman@zoho.com>
 Date: Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 10:44
 To: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
 Subject: making the draft for CR accurate
 Resent-From: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
 Resent-Date: Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 10:43
 
   
 
   I think the draft for CR has to change the introduction:  
   
 
  from    
   
 
  Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, cognitive limitations, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Following these guidelines will also often make your Web content more usable to users in general.
 
   
 
  to 
 
   
 
   Following these guidelines will make content accessible to a wider range of people with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these. These guidelines address accessibility of web content on desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices and begins  to  address  learning disabilities and cognitive limitations at conformance level AAA, 
 
   
 
   
 
  I am not sure if consider low vision to be addressed or "begins to addressed"  
 
   
  All the best
 
 Lisa Seeman
 
 LinkedIn,  Twitter