RE: WCAG 2.3 v 3.0 - was RE: XR Subgroup Update [April 27th 2021]

  *   FWIW, I don't recall mentioning anything about "reducing the amount of sound requiring captions"

John, it’s the very first heading in the document you linked: “Uses additional functionality and game design to reduce the amount of sound that requires captioning, and to pace that sound to allow organically slower captions.” (https://docs.google.com/document/d/12o2S3XVltDgsMTjbHPPi0FMTJeoUAKqOrN8jpArkfFQ/edit#heading=h.ynbi2ooffkzm)


  *   Getting a 'standard' that mandates captions in XR will benefit non-hearing users the most
WCAG today already mandates captions in XR.   The mandate doesn’t go far enough to address all aspects of XR – but WCAG does apply to web based XR today.  There are many additional captioning criteria that could be created – e.g. control over fonts, size, placements, etc. the challenge up until now has been getting these approved – users could benefit from some of in 2018 on the web and in XR then.


  *   I believe if we have a testable requirement today, we should publish it in a timely fashion and NOT have it hinged on the release of WCAG 3
We already have mechanisms to publish user requirements without them being standards today.   This has been done for mobile, users with low vision, users with cognitive disabilities, and XUAR.     I’m not opposed to adding new requirement/criteria to the WCAG 2.x current model if it is fruitful – but my experience has been that with each passing extension it’s become more difficult and there seems to be more diminishing returns on the effort.

Folks seem to associate non-binary score with subjectivity.  There is already subjectivity in WCAG today – non-binary scoring doesn’t necessarily mean any more subjectivity – but more flexibility with documentation and meaningful data that led to a score that may pass the core paths of the user but not be 100%.

Jonathan

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2021 3:11 PM
To: Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@levelaccess.com>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: WCAG 2.3 v 3.0 - was RE: XR Subgroup Update [April 27th 2021]

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.

Hi Jon,

Thank-you for this.

FWIW, I don't recall mentioning anything about "reducing the amount of sound requiring captions" - rather, I pointed to an ongoing activity already buried within our midst that is working on a testable requirement for captions in the XR (Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality) space - for which, today, we have nothing. NOTHING!

Will 'solving' that concern benefit all users? Nowhere near that, but it would at least be a first step forward in the right direction (IMHO). Getting a 'standard' that mandates captions in XR will benefit non-hearing users the most, whereas the ability to "...enlarged, change to high-contrast colors, or otherwise style..." caption text in the XR environment would likely be of more benefit to low-viz users (and others) but may be harder to technically achieve today - if at all. (ref: MAUR<https://www.w3.org/TR/media-accessibility-reqs/#auditory-visual-deaf-blind>)  So then, does "Captions in XR" have to be all or nothing? Or is it "take what we can get today, and keep pushing for more"? (You can guess where I land there)

Assuming that one or more testable requirement(s) emerges from that effort, I'm simply suggesting that waiting for WCAG 3 to drop to implement that/those requirement(s) may not actually be the most beneficial approach - I believe if we have a testable requirement today, we should publish it in a timely fashion and NOT have it hinged on the release of WCAG 3 (which, you note, could still be another 3-5 years out). [insert trope about perfect being the enemy of the good here]

Jon, I'm not a huge fan of "living specs" when it comes to accessibility/WCAG (I continue to believe we still need firm snapshots to report against), but there *is* a reason why so much of the W3C has moved to that kind of model - tech changes faster than we can sometimes keep up with, so if something is "ready" and/or "stable" publish it and move forward (is all).

> "There is also intersectional issues such as intersection of sensory disabilities like low vision and hard of hearing and sensory and cognitive disabilities – without personalization or a non-binary model these great recommendations likely will not get consensus..."

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but at this point we have no idea whether or not some of what is being proposed as part of the "non-binary" model that would be *part* of WCAG 3 will get consensus either. This past week, I spent about a day and a half evaluating what we currently have as part of a sub-group activity (WCAG 3.0 Conformance Architecture Testing), and my results were far from encouraging (Example? We're currently not even sure if we're asking for 'clear words', 'common words', 'common clear words' or 'plain language' - all four terms are used, seemingly interchangeably, in the same requirement. And the current test suite resulted in the words 'fake', 'site' and 'accessibility' - amongst others - being rejected as jargon or technical terms).

There is already more opinion and subjectivity in the emergent work than there is in WCAG 2.x, which I will argue makes conformance harder to achieve, and FAR harder to defend from a legal compliance perspective: it will be your experts versus our experts in front of the judge. (And that presumes that the regulators accept WCAG 3 - which is what we HOPE will happen, but we have no guarantees that they will, outside of an expressed desire to do so at this time).

JF

On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 1:38 PM Jonathan Avila <jon.avila@levelaccess.com<mailto:jon.avila@levelaccess.com>> wrote:
Hi John, this actually moves us into trickier situations that increase the requirements on author or platforms with support for personalization.     I’m not opposed to additional requirements – I’ve tried to get them passed several times - but it’s been my experience that with the WCAG 2.x binary model it’s been extremely difficult to get them approved and we spend endless cycles trying to find someone that everyone will agree on in the current binary model and it can take years or the SC is then watered down or it’s dropped.

The requirement you mention reducing the amount of sound requiring captions would have to be an option otherwise it would reduce accessiblity for people who are visually impaired.  So these types of things very much get into requiring personalization – which I know is a separate effort but one that will be needed to ensure access by a wide range of users with varying disabilities that often have needs that contradict the needs of other groups.   There is also intersectional issues such as intersection of sensory disabilities like low vision and hard of hearing and sensory and cognitive disabilities – without personalization or a non-binary model these great recommendations likely will not get consensus in WCAG 2.x and will take up a lot of time moving the timeline of WCAG 3.0 from 3-5 to 5+ years.  Is getting 5 to 6 new A or AA criteria in WCAG 2.3 of value over pushing WCAG 3.0 additional years down the road?  Maybe, maybe not?  If folks have to choose between 2.3 and 3.0 and their employment mandates they tackle 2.3 if it exists then that pulls their expertise away from 3.0 meaning 2 years from now they have to be brought back in to the 3.0 cycle when their expertise was needed earlier.

Jonathan

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca<mailto:john@foliot.ca>>
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2021 1:21 PM
To: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org<mailto:w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>>
Subject: Fwd: XR Subgroup Update [April 27th 2021]

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After today's call, I wanted to share this which I suspect many have not yet seen: an example of work already happening (somewhere within our group, but how many of you knew this was happening?) - and this is just related to XR captioning!

Suzanne is already working on a "testable statement", and I'd really be concerned if we didn't have a mechanism to add a new testable requirement like this into our larger effort, for the sole reason that we've collectively been working on other aspects of WCAG 3, so updating the existing corpus of requirements is "off limits". I assert we should be publishing regular updates of these types of tests in either or both WCAG 'frameworks' - the key being "timely" updates. (I note as well that the main reason we spun up the COGA, LV and Mobile TF's was because we let too much time lapse between updates of our spec in the past. I believe we should be trying to avoid that kind of bottleneck problem too.)

This is not about NOT turning our efforts to WCAG 3 - we need to get cracking in earnest there - but it's about staying focused on all of the moving parts, of which scalable, score-able and repeatable testing methods will always exist.

JF
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Michael Crabb (Staff) <m.z.crabb@dundee.ac.uk<mailto:m.z.crabb@dundee.ac.uk>>
Date: Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 8:28 AM
Subject: XR Subgroup Update [April 27th 2021]
To: Silver Task Force <public-silver@w3.org<mailto:public-silver@w3.org>>

The Silver XR Subgroup is currently working asynchronously and is not carrying out weekly meetings. This email is intended as a brief update on work the group is carrying out.

1) @Suzanne Taylor has begun work on a method for the “Provides customization of caption timing to support people with limited manipulation, strength, or cognition” outcome. Please find time to give feedback on this if you can
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12o2S3XVltDgsMTjbHPPi0FMTJeoUAKqOrN8jpArkfFQ/edit#heading=h.ynbi2ooffkzm


2) There are currently 9 open issues<https://github.com/w3c/silver/labels/Subgroup%3A%20XR%20-%20Captions> on the w3c/silver github repository that relate to XR/captions. Initial responses have been created to 8 of these and are available below. Please take time to review/comment on these before they are placed on GitHub on 29th April.
     *   Issue #259 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.4vci8db4rzyf

     *   Issue #360 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.74t0jj1f9zsv

     *   Issue #379 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.md2t9liawuub

     *   Issue #415 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.puvqxs9jitu6

     *   Issue #420 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.owhufmt71jiw

     *   Issue #421 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.f42tzcuviq8

     *   Issue #438 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.99dkihi2fd7k

     *   Issue #474 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit#heading=h.jeaggtnahirc


3)  Work is underway on organising our Working Document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1om7h7HE-9sIPeBRmJrBSESQWsMGH8PysiWCpAUWXBUQ/edit> in order to provide clarity for short/medium term subgroup plans.
     *   Our current goal is to finish initial drafts for guidelines relating to subtitling in XR
     *   We need to start thinking about caption accuracy and if this is something that should be included for WCAG3
        *   Mike to explore methods that have been used to carry this out previously
     *   If you would like to participate then please reach out or visit the working document

Kind Regards

Mike Crabb



The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096


--
John Foliot | Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility
"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." - Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"


--
John Foliot | Senior Industry Specialist, Digital Accessibility
"I made this so long because I did not have time to make it shorter." - Pascal "links go places, buttons do things"