RE: Finding HHello jennie,elp

Chair hat off.

 

I’m now lost as to our intent with this SC.  For a while I thought it was just about ensuring that help is presented consistently across sites IF such help is available, but didn’t require any specific style of help…  and then I’ve thought that this SC was requiring both help be presented consistently AND the style of help must be one of…

 

The way that I read the current proposed text (HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.google.com/document/d/1fX4Iw169OGUny5RTd70S8qAneYy5e0hr7zupE21gPBM/edit__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKWQON4ywA$"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fX4Iw169OGUny5RTd70S8qAneYy5e0hr7zupE21gPBM/edit#), not only must the access to that help be presented consistently on multiple web pages, it must also be one of the four options (human contact details or mechanism, self-help, or chatbot).

 

Is it our intent to prescribe that help must be one of these four options AND be placed consistently across all web pages?  Or just that it be placed consistently IF one of these styles of help is offered by the site?  The way this SC is currently worded, a link to a new and innovative style of help (for which we cannot possibly imagine all the possibilities) will fail.

 

Regards,

Charles Adams

 

From: Niemann, Gundula <gundula.niemann@sap.com> 
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2020 7:48 AM
To: John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>; Rachael Bradley Montgomery <rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>
Cc: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>; WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: RE: Finding HHello jennie,elp

 

Hello John,

 

there definitely is a difference between quantitative testing and qualitative testing.

This holds true also for the FAQ and How-to page currently suggested.

 

Contextual help is needed for each interactive site, including the Web page of a local pizzeria.

(By SC 3.3.5 this even can be achieved by correct labeling and text input fields. In fact I do not agree in this point.)

The size and complexity of help clearly scales with the size and complexity of the web page or application.

WCAG is not just an optional guide for small web pages and single-person authors, but is enacted as law in many countries, including Australia, Germany, and USA. And it is applied as law for all kinds of applications, not only applications written with html, javascript and css.

 

Recently in the US a pizzeria was sued as their web page was not usable for a blind user (he could not order pizza). The company lost.

See HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/dominos-supreme-court.html__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKUbhHIv_Q$"https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/07/dominos-supreme-court.html

or HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKWzvwRYhw$"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/10/accessibility-the-future-and-why-dominos-matters/ 

 

Therefore I am clearly in favor of requesting contextual help. Nevertheless, I agree to

-          Giving it a right place in the overall picture as was done in the current wording of the understanding

-          Focusing the SC Findable Help on human help (direct and indirect) help as is currently done

-          Turning back to contextual help in the next version (WCAG 2.3 or 3.0, as suggested by Rachael), creating a good, clear, and feasible requirement. 

 

Best regards,

Gundula

 

From: John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com> 
Sent: Donnerstag, 16. April 2020 01:21
To: Rachael Bradley Montgomery <rachael@accessiblecommunity.org>
Cc: Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>; Niemann, Gundula <gundula.niemann@sap.com>; WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Finding HHello jennie,elp

 

Hi all,

 

Gundala writes:

 

"...context help according to my experience with end-users and with testing is the one most often needed and very often missed."

 

I think that there is an important (and to my mind at least, unanswered) question here, and that is "why isn't that contextual help being made available today?" 

 

I can accept that in many instances, lack of awareness may be the main culprit, but there are (or at least I can envision) many scenarios where it is either non-achievable, or does not scale (or it is deemed "not necessary" by the content owner). Contextual help in the use-case of a major bank I can understand; but on the 3-page web site of the local pizzeria? What contextual help? There are significantly more small businesses than big businesses out there, with budgets and technical expertise that matches those differing sizes.

 

I am concerned that as we get increasingly granular in our demands, we're losing sight of the impact on the content creators, and what that means for adoption going forward. Telling every website out there that they MUST provide contextual help (as a single A requirement?) is going to get a ton of pushback from the mainstream business community, especially if failing to do something like that exacerbates their legal risk. 

 

As I read the current draft SC, it seems to be more about ensuring that the location of Help is consistent within the site, but currently stops short of what kind of help MUST be offered, instead opting for "should" language there ("At least one of the following mechanisms to get help should be included:..."). But to then also demand specific types of help is where we're going to encounter the resistance. I'm not suggesting that this isn't an issue, I am only saying that we need to look at the requirement(s) from many different angles, which I am concerned we are forgetting to do here.

 

Alastair writes:

 

We already have a requirement for context sensitive help, 3.3.6: HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/*help__;Iw!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKWoxAOY7w$"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#help

 

To which I note that it is at level AAA for exactly the concerns/reasons I outlined above: and primarily because of the impact on content creators.

JF

 

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 11:52 AM Rachael Bradley Montgomery <HYPERLINK "mailto:rachael@accessiblecommunity.org"rachael@accessiblecommunity.org> wrote:

Hello,

 

Jennie, Steve and I went through the Findable Help SC Draft and pulled in the understanding document to make sure everyone was looking at the same information. We moved everything  else to the bottom under history.  We added content to the understanding to clarify that this SC is not for content sensitive help by referencing 3.3.6 and that human help is preferred when possible.

 

The most recent version is at the top of: HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/docs.google.com/document/d/1fX4Iw169OGUny5RTd70S8qAneYy5e0hr7zupE21gPBM/edit__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKWQON4ywA$"https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fX4Iw169OGUny5RTd70S8qAneYy5e0hr7zupE21gPBM/edit#

 

Thank you,

 

Rachael

 

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 12:31 PM Alastair Campbell <HYPERLINK "mailto:acampbell@nomensa.com"acampbell@nomensa.com> wrote:

Gundula wrote:

> Nevertheless, context help according to my experience with end-users and with testing is the one most often needed and very often missed.

 

We already have a requirement for context sensitive help, 3.3.6:

HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/*help__;Iw!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKWoxAOY7w$"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#help 

 

We should not add an overlapping requirement for that to the proposed SC, that would not meet the requirements for SC we setup to start with.

 

Kind regards,

 

-Alastair




 

-- 

Rachael Montgomery, PhD

Director, Accessible Community

HYPERLINK "mailto:rachael@accessiblecommunity.org"rachael@accessiblecommunity.org

 

"I will paint this day with laughter; 

I will frame this night in song." 

 - Og Mandino

 




 

-- 

​John Foliot | Principal Accessibility Strategist | W3C AC Representative
Deque Systems - Accessibility for Good
HYPERLINK "https://urldefense.com/v3/__http:/deque.com/__;!!GqivPVa7Brio!IT6TXViTE3sbBVFMBdYeGvWVvr95dteavTy8H49Nm_Pb8YuNvO9aQAxaSKV92SYKIg$"deque.com