Re: WCAG 3.0: Conformance model - a different view

To Hidde -
By policy makers, the reference is to people / agencies who define / adopt
regulations / legislation. They could be enterprises or government.
About ability to select the bar: Yes, WCAG 3.0 should permit them to adopt
only foundational level requirements or the enhanced set that includes
foundational + supplemental requirements. They could even mandate that only
after, say, the first 2 or 3 years the compliance level will include
supplemental requirements.

To Hidde / Greg-
The focus of this thread (first email Nov 14, 2025) is to suggest  a
different approach for conformance that obviates the bronze-silver-gold
levels. [1]
Drawing up a conformance statement that makes the various functional needs
the center piece and then states whether requirements associated with the
various needs have been satisfied makes it an appealing approach IMO.

The  email (Nov 19) brought up the topic of assertions because the
PowerPoint slides discussing conformance model [2] says bronze ... gold
levels have:
"•Some percentage of supplemental requirements and/or assertions in each
functional needs area"

I agree, as highlighted by Greg and documented in the referenced
PowerPoint, assertions   relate to processes. And yes, as Greg states, they
do not guarantee  any specific outcome. No debate there.
That's why, my view is that assertions should not  be used to express
conformance of WCAG 3.0.
Examples of assertions: row 7, 17 to 20, 66, ... 156etc. of spreadsheet [3]
A different email thread outlines how assertions could be used [4].

[1]: First email in this thread proposing an approach to conformance:
 https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2025OctDec/0059.html
[2] Proposed Conformance Level Slides:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DlDxp8MCYXj3RWnFCCz13zsmM2fV4Wf8NbECKogdul8/edit?slide=id.g39fd5db5083_2_0#slide=id.g39fd5db5083_2_0
[3] Spreadsheet with list of requirements: foundational, supplemental, and
assertions shared by Alastair on Oct 9, 2025
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vFgaAY7F1lIuQX8z2O4BrXdKC1Y-cfnda8EESct6iho/edit?gid=0#gid=0
[4] Email : views about requirement levels and suggested usage for
assertions:
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2025OctDec/0057.htmlThanks,

Sailesh Panchang
Principal Accessibility Consultant

Email: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
Deque Systems Inc | - Accessibility for Good | www.deque.com














On Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 3:55 PM Hidde de Vries <hidde@hiddedevries.nl>
wrote:

>
>
> > On 20 Nov 2025, at 20:05, Gregg Vanderheiden <gregg@vanderheiden.us>
> wrote:
> > @Hidde  - not sure what you mean by “policy makers”.  I did not mention
> them in my post.
> >
> > But generally - when I  say “Policy Makers” I  am referring to those who
> created  laws and regulations.
>
> Was referring to Sailesh' first email in the thread. I think of the same
> when referring to policy makers.
>
> Agreed with your description of what asssertions are / should be.
>
>