RE: [Protocols] Agenda for April 22th, 2022

I largely agree with what John is saying, especially from this point onwards: “Protocols will not / should not "evaluate guidance" - Protocols *ARE* guidance – “
But how I’ve thought of the, protocols can potentially encapsulate both the guidance (‘minimize abbreviations’) and one or more adopted methods (‘by using only abbreviations on this common list’ and ‘by always using a spelled out version of the term in the first instance on a page or group of pages followed by the abbreviation in parentheses’). Where those protocols are published, the methods could help anyone evaluate the relative success of the outcome against the protocol.
So perhaps that is what is meant by “evaluate guidance”? Now that you’re holding protocols meetings and a later time on alternating weeks, I hope to attend to better understand where the group is at.

Thanks!
Mike

From: John Foliot <john@foliot.ca>
Date: Tuesday, April 19, 2022 at 4:15 PM
To: Jaunita George <jaunita_george@navyfederal.org>
Cc: public-silver@w3.org <public-silver@w3.org>, w3c-wai-gl@w3.org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>, Benjamin Feigel <Benjamin_Feigel@navyfederal.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Protocols] Agenda for April 22th, 2022
Hi Juanita, You state that one view is: "Protocols are above or beyond any type of conformance, aka “extra credit”" I do not remember the group agreeing to that at all - and in fact I was slapped down for bringing up conformance during ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
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Hi Juanita,

You state that one view is: "Protocols are above or beyond any type of conformance, aka “extra credit”"

I do not remember the group agreeing to that at all - and in fact I was slapped down for bringing up conformance during that call.



JF: I still feel strongly that is not reasonable for us to expect much progress on protocol until we have better clarity with the WCAG3 conformance model...
… just too hard to know how to talk about protocol without metrics of scoring and points.

Rachael: I hear you John, and this is something the chairs have discussed.

JF: It seems like a blocker to me.

Jeanne: Point noted, I would ask that you let us move on. (JF agrees.)

(source: https://www.w3.org/2022/04/15-wcag3-protocols-minutes.html<https://www.w3.org/2022/04/15-wcag3-protocols-minutes.html>)

(I note that according to the minutes<https://www.w3.org/2022/04/19-ag-minutes.html>, the topic of the need for a workable Conformance Model came up again on today's WCAG call, as well as in the WBS survey for Charter Extension, with more than one person commenting on how critical it is we start to address this gap. But I digress...)

I disagree in the strongest of terms that Protocols are "extra credit" because:
a) we do not yet have any idea what "credit" means in the context of conformance, and
b) making Protocols "extra" in any context will likely serve to relegate Protocols to the WCAG AAA Success Criteria pile - lovely to look at but never really adopted at scale. I believe that would be a horrible end-state.

I personally do agree with a point made by Jeanne over the concern that Protocols not be "too weighted" and that using Protocols not be a means to game the final score in whatever conformance model we ultimately come up with.

***********
Continuing on the broader point, I do not agree with either of the "views" you presented here - and did not on Friday either, at least not as articulated here.

While I strongly disagree with the 'second' view, I also disagree with how you are characterizing the 'first view' - "Protocols can evaluate guidance where the outcomes cannot be measured, such as evaluating whether a process has been followed."

Protocols will not / should not "evaluate guidance" - Protocols *ARE* guidance - guidance that then allows content creators to evaluate their final outcomes when faced with a given scenario. The outcomes arrived at (in context) cannot be 'measured' in any consistent way, but they can be contrasted and compared to the published examples and expected outcomes articulated in a Protocol, with the content creation goal being "Get as close to this expected outcome as we can in our context".

So for example, when Plain Language<https://plainlanguage.gov> states "Choose your words carefully<https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/words/>" and then provides the following recommendations:

  *   Use simple words and phrases
  *   Avoid hidden verbs
  *   Avoid noun strings
  *   Avoid jargon
  *   Minimize abbreviations
  *   Minimize definitions
  *   Use the same terms consistently
  *   Place words carefully
...we cannot accurately or consistently "measure" the outcome, but we *CAN* evaluate content against those recommendations: Protocols help inform 'opinion'!

Example: One of the recommendations is 'minimize abbreviations' - which again cannot be measured or counted, but most people will be able to get a sense of whether there are "too many" abbreviations or not. But... how many is "too many"? Protocols cannot answer that question, because the most truthful answer is "it depends"... 10 abbreviations in 10 sentences may be too many (or not), but 10 abbreviations in 10,000 sentences is a whole different scenario.

Perhaps another way of thinking about Protocols is when they are 'used' by the content author(s)/creator(s).
ACT-like rules are run *after* there is some code or content to evaluate or test, but Protocols should be used far sooner than that (Shifting Left) - Protocols provide the appropriate guidance to avoid issues once content starts to be created. Protocols guide 'planning' far more than as part of the finished product (e.g. when writing content, "Choose your words carefully" - which is guidance given before the content is written, and not afterwards).

However you, as a 3rd-party evaluator can also use the Protocol to evaluate my content. You may not agree with each individual decision I made (subjectivity at play), but after us both reading the Protocol, we both should have a broadly-shared understanding of the goal of any given Protocol, that we can then use to guide our subjective (opinionated) evaluation of the content.

This is how I view both the goals and application of Protocols in WCAG 3 - which neither of your expressed perspectives seems to capture.

My $0.02

JF

On Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 4:33 PM Jaunita George <jaunita_george@navyfederal.org<mailto:jaunita_george@navyfederal.org>> wrote:
Hi all,

We had a very productive meeting last week. Here are some of the decisions from our meeting last Friday:


  *   Decision: There are two views about how Protocols can be used:

     *   Protocols can evaluate guidance where the outcomes cannot be measured, such as evaluating whether a process has been followed.
     *   Protocols are above or beyond any type of conformance, aka “extra credit”

  *   Decision: Work will continue on both areas of consensus.
  *   Decision: Meetings will alternate between 8am and 12pm EST.
  *   Decision: Table discussion of splitting discussion during meetings until we have mechanics worked out but can split the time to both theories next week to keep discussion and work moving.

To continue our work, we’ll be using Zoom’s breakout group feature during the first half of our meeting and then reporting out on what we worked on and having a brief discussion to iron out the mechanics of our meetings moving forward.


Next Meeting:

The next meeting will be on Friday, April 22th at 12:00pm EST.

*** Agenda***

Here’s our agenda for this week based on our discussions:

Agenda+ Breakout groups (30 minutes)
Agenda+ Report out (10 minutes)
Agenda+ How to run future meetings

Meeting info:

The Zoom teleconference data is provided at this link: https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/f828eba1-cf1d-44ce-b68e-b22406b25ae1/20220422T120000<https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/f828eba1-cf1d-44ce-b68e-b22406b25ae1/20220422T120000>

We will be on IRC using the W3C server at https://irc.w3.org<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1bbHg1R0NpE7wu_f231-AnlS80Y-y5vJTvdOEWJENhb8A72iXd8LCnf3ggBw4-smyidfgNxC8x8umv7E05ehkUF2bZBz2YRztLLv4RKaBjPX52PKUDxmvfMGEBjoozskkcieYlkp03z0RNZpT4OYcOd4hVzq8R7ZxdOFKZWkBKST8tH_692bct2eWCZGqxEH2CqP3AYWJvaQCFfDc0IutM6Rj-U09KIPjPRnc7FV26Wdj10BaRhnKyirh5JjBQBiUijZJ9qa0yX2qAvF17eId_iMnLYZJUiOJFMccNsS6Lx1I4XZzBbvOxVip14Ng8wGLJfXvx15u76cOB7dAeH7XvgpoWs6R_tsGa3dqAcv4R_28w7gc_bd-NL4b_nyhs9ocwFRphYixX3lTUlkEH0Nokh_o6hHppEenQieUgyV9aZx_s1E0SmDtT5e5jzWNn35PIXxCXehg937DHDABmN_O-g/https%3A%2F%2Furldefense.com%2Fv3%2F__https%3A%2Firc.w3.org%2F__%3B%21%21ACWV5N9M2RV99hQ%21ZvVx1wh89EAXhBiorHpgvdpQRlEtQPxaEsJbJ7_Q3MrxtnQGs5lwbIC34ybOl3ZsYw%24>, in channel #wcag3-protocols

Where to find more information:

These and additional details of our work, including minutes, current, and archived draft documents are available on our subgroup wiki page here: https://github.com/w3c/silver/wiki/Protocols<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Hf7szbnvXj1QLrtDEE6rG7_4x2W4mjJ7gAH2zvGGTBAbMmVNyz6tNiVnJpgd9TFfgBYw-5X5beCKFq8To4sjXq5xKpPTu6lTPbVtQCROAEQX2H14eAfdGsixIcNkARfu_TdzOlXB2BtBTemQPxcXpo4S12Y-4CgkPapDOcFlsz_e2DPX921mCkxlRfEG3xA4WGbR2wnaXOq-GC0VY3HU4Sck16zbHzKiI8QodbeWTkTMGdniQitpC8iSoGJF48TnI5OZ8tbhVcMjwXUOQt14z-iNhOIUsIpFz-5ow-jynMKi6Mq_7zdAGSVV6G1TTXsuWCPJHlx1EjNvWpzbsC1zUPg5HaKNl-wEDX_9mZYhXaZcZZ-zl4Be7FvruDKdvZKxh4VXzFMOXaVjWLwcXaplsafajbRCfp75gHc6l-hgavxjhZapqtoVDIzI58t9uZTDbunnYgDhQmDavi7BtMoboQ/https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fw3c%2Fsilver%2Fwiki%2FProtocols>

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Looking forward to our next meeting!


Jaunita George, JD, PMP, WAS (she/her)
QA-ADA Analyst III, Product Engineering & Delivery Services (ISD)
DHS Certified Trusted Tester (TTV5)
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