Proposal: Conformance Statement

Hello,

Based on consensus reached during the 20 January teleconference [1],
I propose the following statement of conformance to the
User Agent Guidelines. Note that all the hard work lays ahead:
establishing two subsets of checkpoints. 

 - Ian

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ua/1999JanMar/0071.html

--

Conformance

The terms "must", "should", and "may" (and related terms) are 
used in this document in accordance with RFC 2119 ([RFC2119]). 

This document defines two categories of conformance in order to 
promote a standard of accessibility within, and interoperability 
between, two important classes of user agents - graphical desktop 
browsers and dependent assistive technologies. 

Desktop graphical user agents 

      To conform to this document, a desktop graphical user agent 
      must: 

         1.Satisfy all the Priority 1 checkpoints explicitly 
           marked as applying to that class of user agent, and 

         2.Satisfy those checkpoints natively (i.e., no additional 
           software is required) unless the checkpoint explicitly 
           indicates that it may be satisfied through communication 
           with other software. 

      Even for those checkpoints that must be satisfied natively, 
      desktop graphical user agents should make information 
      available to other software through standard interfaces. 

Dependent user agents 

      To conform to this document, a dependent user agent must: 

         1.Satisfy all the Priority 1 checkpoints explicitly marked
           as applying to that class of user agent. 

         2.Satisfy those checkpoints natively (i.e., no additional 
           software is required) unless the checkpoint explicitly 
           indicates that it may be satisfied through communication 
           with other software. 

Verification that a checkpoint has been satisfied lies outside 
of the scope of this document and the activities of the WAI User 
Agent Working  Group. The checkpoints are expressed in 
language intended to facilitate verification by other parties. 

Please note that lack of conformance does not imply lack of 
accessibility. However, the WAI User Agent Working Group believes 
that a user agent that conforms to this document is more likely 
to be accessible than one that does not. 

The conformance mechanisms defined here reflect the weight that
the WAI User Agent Working Group assigns to the Priority 1 
checkpoints. However, the Working Group also recommends that 
user agent developers satisfy as many checkpoints as possible, 
including Priority 2 and 3 checkpoints.

Received on Friday, 29 January 1999 18:35:52 UTC