RE: Functional Outcomes MUST cover all benefits OR must be duplicated

Building on what Jake has said about functional outcomes covering all functional needs – this relates to my comment in the WCAG 3.0 survey from a week or so ago.    I’d like to get a legal expert to way in on if we use such terms of functional outcomes and because we can’t possibly ensure 100% functional access for all people with diverse and layered needs AND couple this with the fact that laws like the ADA in the US are based on functional use – is the term functional outcome problematic as it implies a level of function by a user that we are not measuring in Bronze at a user task level?  That is, while we are testing for issues in a path and view we don’t seem to be requiring testing with users at this level.

Jonathan

From: jake abma <jake.abma@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 7, 2020 3:46 AM
To: Silver TF <public-silver@w3.org>; WCAG list <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Functional Outcomes MUST cover all benefits OR must be duplicated

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Hi all,

Just another issue we must have correct or discuss at least before publication I think.

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As Guidelines are not normative but (Functional) Outcomes are, they must cover all benefits for all Functional Groups and Functional Needs we try to tackle.

This means the "so... bla bla" statement should be broad enough to cover all benefits OR a bulleted list might be needed with the benefits (and are the benefits normative then?).

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On the other hand, if we use bulleted lists for Benefits, then all methods and the scoring / tests MUST cover all benefits also otherwise they are not compatible (Charles Hall commented on this in the functional needs subgroup).

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If this is not a "Catch All" for (Functional) Outcomes, we might need to split / duplicate Outcomes covering different Benefits (?!)

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EXAMPLE 1
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"Provides semantic structure So can convey a sense of hierarchy"

In this case the benefits of navigating or locating are not mentioned, also the Functional Needs are not covered as it's not in the normative text.

Three options for this example:

1. (long sentence, covering all benefits)

"Provides semantic structure So can convey a sense of hierarchy AND/OR users can navigate AND/OR users can locate"

2. (use of bulleted list)

"Provides semantic structure

  *   So can convey a sense of hierarchy
  *   So users can navigate
  *   So users can locate"
3. (split in 3 Functional Outcomes)


"Provides semantic structure so can convey a sense of hierarchy"
"Provides semantic structure so users can navigate"
"Provides semantic structure so users can locate"

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This is just an example of the challenge with the Functional Outcome texts being normative, more examples are not difficult to think of.

Another option would be to separate the Benefits from the functional outcome and mention them as something like: " Benefits might be but not limited to: bla, bla and bla"

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At the moment I think the Functional Outcomes as we have now are to open to interpretation and probably will not make it as normative text to be tested and scored.

Of course happy to illustrate of dsicus.

Cheers,
Jake