RE: My Retirement Letter

Wayne,

I love you for all you have done for all of us.

John

John Rochford
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center
Director, INDEX Program
Faculty, Family Medicine & Community Health
www.DisabilityInfo.org
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From: Wayne Dick <wayneedick@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2020 9:48 PM
To: GLWAI Guidelines WG org <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>; W3C WAI ig <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>; Tom Jewett <tom@knowbility.org>; Judy Brewer <jbrewer@w3.org>
Subject: My Retirement Letter


Dear Friends,

I am retired from AG. I’m 72 and I am gardening, teaching my grandchildren on Zoom and studying mathematics. It’s fun, and I strongly recommend giving yourself time to enjoy your time on earth.

This letter is to reflect on my time with the W3C. It has been wonderful, even if I got really frustrated at times. That is the nature of changing the world. We all have good ideas, and at the W3C many are brilliant. I felt honored to bask in the glow of so many luminaries. I was so lucky to meet people who had a lot to give and gave all of it.

I also love what you have accomplished. Incomplete, sometimes flawed, but always improving life for people with disabilities, the W3C work has done more for print disabilities than any other group in history. I can read almost every topic I need to read. Sometimes I hit dead ends, but today that is rare.

I am mildly sorry about being a pain in the --- at times. I do wish I could have remained diplomatic, but I am flawed.

There one thing I would like to suggest for future Wayne’s. When a person complains about an access issue please listen to the need. People with disabilities often perceive issues that support personnel and researchers do not know. Support personnel and researchers are experts, but the person with the disability knows more than any expert.

When a person with a disability says, “I cannot do activity X.” There really might be profound accessibility issues that have not been recognized at present. At that point we need to ask four questions.

  1.   Does the issue observed problem reveal of a new accessibility barrier?
  2.   Can the barrier be addressed with web technology?
  3.   Does the structure of web accessibility guidelines enable a strategy that can address this issue?
  4.   If 1 and 2 are true and 3 is false, is it ethical for the AG to ignore the issue because it exceeds the scope of the current accessibility guidelines?

I am not sure how to implement a protocol like this, but I think it is necessary. Silver is moving in this direction, but I think our new guidelines need to build in mechanisms for growth and foundational review.

WCAG 2 attempted to anticipate changes in web technology with the Robust Principle, but it did not make room for changes to assistive technologies or the need for new assistive technologies. At the writing of WCAG 2 there was little to no consideration of the personalization issue. WCAG 2 addressed transformations of one learning mode to another mode like text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and mouse access (visual) to keyboard. However, WCAG 2 did not address intra modal transformatio. For example, text to modified text was not addressed in an effective way. Real access to intra modal transformation lives outside the scope of WCAG 2. For example, change of color is impossible within the scope of WCAG 2. We just gave that up.

Sadly, the WG often questions the user need when the current technology or limits of the guidelines cannot slove the problem.

When a future Wayne comes along, maybe you could just say. “You have identified a serious problem, but we don’t know how to solve it.” That would be disappointing, but it would not feel dismissive.

With Love, Wayne