Re: on headings, labels, links, and image maps

Hi

On May 28, 2010, at 10:49 AM, Gunderson, Jon R wrote:
> My understanding of WCAG 2.0 is that it is up to each organization or company to define their requirements for meeting the WCAG 2.0 guidelines.  There are suggested requirements in the techniques document, but these are only suggestions and are not normative in the W3C process.


Close.   Right idea - but the terminology isn't quite right.  I think you meant to say  that it is up to each organization to define the techniques they want to use to meet the WCAG requirements.  (The success criteria in WCAG are the requirements of WCAG and they are normative).   As you say - the techniques are just suggestions and are not normative. 


GENERAL COMMENTS

WCAG has both guidelines and Success Criteria in the standard document itself. 
The Guidelines, Success Criteria, Definitions and Conformance Requirements are all normative.  You have to meet them to conform to WCAG.

WCAG also has some support materials including Understanding WCAG, How to Meet WCAG,  and the Techniques document.

These documents are NOT normative.   The Understanding (and How to Meet WCAG) docs list techniques  - some of which the WG feels are SUFFICIENT for satisfying the Success Criteria.  But you do not need to use those techniques.   You can use other techniques if they meet the success criteria in WCAG.  

So techniques are never requirements.   They are techniques or methods or ways that you might use to meet the success criteria. 




REGARDING NESTED HEADINGS
There is no specific requirement that I know of in WCAG that headings be nested properly.   It is good practice and I would highly recommended it.  But things are not a strict requirement unless not doing so would cause one of the success criteria to not be true. 

There is also no requirement that there be headings in a document.  A document for example may be a letter and headings would not necessarily be appropriate 


These are my comments and not official statements of the WCAG working group.  

ciao 

Gregg
-----------------------
Gregg Vanderheiden  


On May 28, 2010, at 10:49 AM, Gunderson, Jon R wrote:

> My understanding of WCAG 2.0 is that it is up to each organization or company to define their requirements for meeting the WCAG 2.0 guidelines.  There are suggested requirements in the techniques document, but these are only suggestions and are not normative in the W3C process.
> 
> So an organization can define their own success criteria for meeting requirement "1.3.1 Info and Relationships: Information, structure, and relationships  conveyed through presentation  can be programmatically determined or are available in text. (Level A)".   This could include using headers properly nested.
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 9:26 AM
> To: richard@userite.com
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org; Gregg Vanderheiden
> Subject: RE: on headings, labels, links, and image maps
> 
> Richard,
> Re: 1.  I'm not trying to say that there isn't any benefit to nesting the headings properly, just that it isn't required by WCAG 2.0.  "Should" can sound as imperative as you believe it to, but there is a difference between 'should' and 'must' and that difference is where I believe that you're misunderstanding the requirement.
> 
> Re: 2.  Correct reading sequence is based on the words being in the correct order, not the headings being correctly nested.  
> 
> I understand your position, and in fact agree with you and follow correct nesting whenever possible, but think that it is worth being clear about what is covered and not covered in WCAG 2.0.
> 
> Thanks,
> AWK
> 
> Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Group Product Manager, Accessibility
> Adobe Systems 
> 
> akirkpat@adobe.com
> http://twitter.com/awkawk
> http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Warren [mailto:richard@userite.com] 
> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 10:15 AM
> To: Andrew Kirkpatrick
> Cc: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: RE: on headings, labels, links, and image maps
> 
> 1) When using a screenreader I can jump up and down a well constructed
> page quite easily by going to the next or previous heading. If the
> headings are not nested properly I start to wonder if I have missed
> something and have to go into virtual focus to read all the surrounding
> text. So for me "should" is a pretty imperative should.
> 2) Guidelines are just that - guidelines. If you have a very good reason
> not to nest headings properly, and can at the same time ensure that the
> reading sequence is logical, then fair enough. But I would love to see
> an example of where this has been achieved.
> 
> Richard
> http:www.userite.com
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 11:47 -0700, Andrew Kirkpatrick wrote:
>> 1) Headings - yes you are correct, level A requires coded headings so
>> that blind users can get an overview of teh page and jump to sections of
>> interest by listing the headings. Level AA requires these headings to be
>> nested correctly (ie form a logical semantic structure)
>> 
>> I did a bit of fact-checking to answer my own question:
>> Headings do not need to be nested properly to comply with WCAG 2.0.  This is desirable, but not required. If you look at the How To Meet information for SC 2.4.10 (2.4.10 Section Headings: Section headings are used to organize the content. (Level AAA)) you'll see the note below:
>> 
>> "In HTML, this would be done using the HTML heading elements (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6). These allow user agents to automatically identify section headings. Other technologies use other techniques for identifying headers. To facilitate navigation and understanding of overall document structure, authors should use headings that are properly nested (e.g., h1 followed by h2, h2 followed by h2 or h3, h3 f
>> followed by h3 or h4, etc.)."
>> 
>> Note the "should" - it doesn't say "must".  That's my take on it...
>> AWK
> 
>