Re: Mechanism Disclaimer

A few questions for the working group to answer, or provide a path to 
answer:

1. How does the author (e.g. web site owner, designer, or developer of the 
element or page) know that all users have [the mechanism]?
        in other words does WCAG or W3C or WAI or who provide the 
investigation or testing to determine if [it] is available in browsers and 
then publish it somewhere as informative guidance?
        If a browser complies with UAAG 2.0 - it that a good indicator? 

2. Can the Working Group choose a different term than "mechanism"?  such 
as a "common browser feature" would be perhaps a better term.  In either 
case, a good definition of "the term" is needed.  The common browser zoom 
feature is a good scenario or example to use to explain.  I think using 
the "user keyboard" is not a good scenario or example to explain the 
concept.

3. "in all browsers" is a very problematic phrase.  And I pretty sure you 
didn't mean it literally as in *all*.  So, when is there enough browser 
that support the "mechanism"?  All the latest releases of the popular 
browser, the top 3, top 4, n-2 or what?         In other words, as an 
author (designer, developer, tester), I need enough information from the 
Working Group (WG) to be able to test that I meet the criteria.

___________
Regards,
Phill Jenkins
Senior Engineer & Accessibility Executive
IBM Research Accessibility
ibm.com/able
facebook.com/IBMAccessibility
twitter.com/IBMAccess
ageandability.com




From:   Gregg C Vanderheiden <greggvan@umd.edu>
To:     Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com>
Cc:     John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>, IG - WAI Interest Group List 
list <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Date:   01/23/2017 12:05 PM
Subject:        Re: Mechanism Disclaimer



???

There are not ? and should not be - any requirements on the user in any 
WCAG.   These are guidelines for authors.


A ?mechanism is available? means that the AUTHOR knows that all users 
already have it (it is in all browsers ) or the author has to provide it. 

If there are new SC being proposed that say ? the user must provide a 
mechanism?  (in any words) then ? you are right - that is a problem and 
needs to be fixed. 

Gregg C Vanderheiden
greggvan@umd.edu



On Jan 23, 2017, at 12:18 PM, Alastair Campbell <acampbell@nomensa.com> 
wrote:

Gregg wrote:
> ?Mechanism is available? is a very powerful and forward looking approach
 
Yes, and to be clear I wasn?t being critical of its use in WCAG 2.0. In 
those cases the onus was (and mostly still is) on the author to provide 
the mechanism.
 
However, for these adaptation SCs the onus is on the user to provide the 
mechanism, and for the author not to disrupt their use of it. In that way 
it is similar to 2.1.1 Keyboard. The user brings the keyboard, the site 
should enable that usage by using proper HTML inputs/links/buttons, not 
using dodgy event handling etc.
 
Cheers,
 
-Alastair