RE: Who needs what Re: A Call to Reorganize WCAG 2.0

Mark Gristock wrote:

> This is the issue. You cannot separate accessibility and usability.

This brings up an important point. I have always felt that some WCAG 1.0
Guidelines were more about usability than accessibility. While an
argument can be made that they are separate, they is a dependency.

> If you can tick every WCAG box and deliver a site that is 
> fundamentally unusable - in a practical rather than technical 
> sense) by an AT or browser, then that is a failure to deliver 
> an accessible site.

Accessibility deals with everyone being able to get to the content and
functionality of a web page. If it's hard to use, then it is a usability
issue. 

Go to Google and type in 'define: access.' You will get varying
definitions of the term, but at the core, it means "the right to enter,
alter and retrieve." Then try usable. It means "able to be put to use."

A web page must first be accessible in order to be usable, not the other
way around. If a page is usable, but the user can't get to it, they
don't even have a chance to use it. Usability is dependent upon
accessibility.

So while the two terms are linked, I think that they can be tested
separately. WCAG needs to define accessibility, how to achieve it
through the use of W3C technologies and how to accurately test it.

> There is nothing you can do about this unless you are 
> prepared to say 'all sites must do this or they are 
> inaccessible'. And when the people on this list can't agree 
> what compliance with guideline 1.1 of WCAG 1.0 means in 
> practice, I don't believe that we this either achievable or desirable.

I completely agree with that statement.

----------
Randal Rust
Covansys Corp.
Columbus, OH 

> -----Original Message-----
> From:  [mailto:mark.gristock@jkd.co.uk] 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 8:32 AM
> To: david poehlman; RUST Randal; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: Who needs what Re: A Call to Reorganize WCAG 2.0
> 
> 
> 
> >Since there are in fact, many examples now of different 
> types of sites 
> >that
> are usable by people with disabilities and assistive 
> technologies, the defense of confusion in court may be nullified.
> 

> 
> If you can tick every WCAG box and deliver a site that is 
> fundamentally unusable - in a practical rather than technical 
> sense) by an AT or browser, then that is a failure to deliver 
> an accessible site. The level of accessibility is determined 
> by the proportion of users able to use the site - not the 
> degree of compliance with non-existent standards. 
> 
> There is nothing you can do about this unless you are 
> prepared to say 'all sites must do this or they are 
> inaccessible'. And when the people on this list can't agree 
> what compliance with guideline 1.1 of WCAG 1.0 means in 
> practice, I don't believe that we this either achievable or desirable.
> 
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> _____________________________________________________________________
>

Received on Wednesday, 25 August 2004 13:04:20 UTC