Re: 4.1.1 depreciation discussion

Hey all,

I took on this task for WCAG 2.2, because I feel strongly that removing
4.1.1 is the right way to go. I have not completed all the research I
wanted to complete. ACT has taken up more time in the past few months than
it usually does, so I've asked the chairs if this could be handed over.

I think this conversation should not be based on Twitter polls, but on
facts. Since I'm handing this work over, or perhaps it will be dropped. I
did want to share what I've learned about SC 4.1.1:


1. Outside of testing for duplicate IDs, none of the free automated testing
tools I've looked at test SC 4.1.1. That includes: AInspector, ARC toolkit,
Axe, JSX-A11y, Siteimprove, Vue-a11y and WAVE. (If you know any freely
available ones I've missed, please let me know)

Additionally Trusted Tester (v5) does not test SC 4.1.1 at all. (See
https://section508coordinators.github.io/TrustedTester/parsing.html)


2. I've only found 2 scenarios frequently reported under 4.1.1 that seem to
have an impact on PwD. Both of which can be reported under a different
success criterion. That's not to say there aren't any other issues, but if
there are it's so uncommon no expert I've asked could recall any.

Scenario 1 is where the duplicate ID is involved in computing the
accessible name of some form field / button / image / whatever. Having an
incorrect accessible name is addressed by other success criteria as well.

Scenario 2 has to do with an issue in Dragon. An interactive element with a
duplicate ID can be misidentified by Dragon, and can cause the wrong thing
to get activated. Since Dragon is a keyboard interface, this is a failure
of 2.1.1. (Definition: interface used by software to obtain keystroke
input).


I'll have to leave it up to the wisdom of other folks in the group how to
interpret this. But if David's poll is at all representative, I think
that's strong evidence that 4.1.1 needs to be either be dropped or
replaced. Think of it this way, if SC 4.1.1 was proposed today (rather than
already being in WCAG), does anyone think it would get accepted for WCAG
2.2 with that much of opposition? I don't think we should be so concerned
about removing things that have (largely) outlived their usefulness.
Especially since a frequent concern is that WCAG is getting too big.

Kind regards,


W

On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 12:34 AM Andrew Kirkpatrick <akirkpat@adobe.com>
wrote:

> David,
>
> Thanks for keeping this on your radar, but I don’t think that we can make
> decisions based on twitter polls. We don’t need to ignore that either, but
> I don’t think that your twitter poll question really captures any criteria
> for why it would be removed and asking people whether they agree with that,
> it just asks “what do you think?”.
>
>
>
> I don’t know if we will remove it or not, the group needs to discuss it.
> The core of the argument is that if 4.1.1 doesn’t do anything that isn’t
> covered by other SC, we can get rid of it. The WG needs to have a
> discussion regarding if 4.1.1 identifies any issues that impact users that
> aren’t caught elsewhere and then discuss what to do with that.
>
>
>
> So, from my perspective, the proposal to discuss 4.1.1 in the group should
> remain, but until the working group does so it is still just a proposal.
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> AWK
>
>
>
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
>
> Head of Accessibility
>
> Adobe
>
>
>
> akirkpat@adobe.com
>
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
>
>
>
> *From: *David MacDonald <david100@sympatico.ca>
> *Date: *Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 1:51 AM
> *To: *WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, WCAG Editors <team-wcag-editors@w3.org>
> *Subject: *4.1.1 depreciation discussion
> *Resent-From: *WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
> *Resent-Date: *Saturday, September 21, 2019 at 1:50 AM
>
>
>
> Hi All
>
>
>
> Congratulations to all who made the long trip to Japan and those who
> stayed up to attend online... I  hope that everyone from North America gets
> a quick restoration of their circadian rhythms.
>
>
>
> I had proposed to remove 4.1.1 and point to 1.3.1 and 4.1.2 to cover the
> same issues.  Wilco researched it and it got a good airing on Github.
>
> https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/770
>
>
>
> I also tweeted out a survey.
> https://twitter.com/davidmacd/status/1172603177654530054
>
>
>
> It appears form both the Github thread and the survey, that support to
> remove it is around 48% on 33 votes, and 52% for keeping it.
>
>
>
> I think based on the Github discussion, this survey,and emails, that I
> should withdraw the proposal, because historically, new actions on the
> standard should have broad support, not moderate support.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> David MacDonald
>
>
>
> *Can**Adapt* *Solutions Inc.*
>
> Tel:  613-806-9005
>
> LinkedIn
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmacdonald100>
>
> twitter.com/davidmacd
>
> GitHub <https://github.com/DavidMacDonald>
>
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>
>
>
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>
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-- 
*Wilco Fiers*
Axe for Web product owner - Co-facilitator WCAG-ACT - Chair ACT-R