Re: [Editorial] Proposed clarification to checkpoint 12.5 (documentation of changes that affect accessibility)

hi Ian, Denis and all:

At 10:12 AM 4/14/01, Ian Jacobs wrote:
>Denis Anson wrote:
>>
>> Ian,
>>
>> The only weakness of this checkpoint that I see is the law of unintended
>> consequences:  You don't always know how a change affects accessibility.
>> Certainly, we want to know how you have improved accessibility, but would
>> any developer deliberately decrease access?  Changes in that direction would
>> be inadvertant, and probably not known.
>>
>> I'm pretty sure, for example, that when IE 4.0 was released, it wasn't
>> deliberate that it broke access.
>>
>> So, if a developer did something that changed access accidentally, would the
>> developer lose conformance when a user contested this?
>
>I don't think so. I would apply the concept of "recognize" to
>humans here: if you know that if affects accessibility, you document
>it. If you don't, then you don't.
>
>Of course, people can lie, but I don't think any document we write
>can protect us against that.
>
>I agree that this checkpoint is hard to verify (as many others
>are in our document) and impossible to automate.

for this an "other reasons", is there a chance that you could enhance
the current defintion of "documentation", such that it might even
include a bullet list (e.g., like AT does),  and then Guideline 12 could be
simplified to perhaps "one" priority one checkpoint?

mark



>
> _ Ian
>
>
>> Denis
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-wai-ua-request@w3.org]On
>> Behalf Of Ian Jacobs
>> Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 8:21 PM
>> To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
>> Subject: [Editorial] Proposed clarification to checkpoint 12.5
>> (documentation of changes that affect accessibility)
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> In the 9 April draft [1], checkpoint 12.5 reads:
>>
>>    "12.5 In each software release, document all changes that
>>          affect accessibility."
>>
>> I think this checkpoint is could be interpreted as making
>> a requirement that spans more than one release of a user
>> agent. This would make conformance for a specific release
>> of a user agent impossible.
>>
>> Instead, I propose the following language, which I consider
>> an editorial clarification:
>>
>>    "12.5 Document all changes from the previous version
>>          of the user agent that affect accessibility."
>>
>> Comments:
>>
>>  - The term "release" has been replaced by "version", which
>>    is the term used in the section on conformance.
>>
>>  _ Ian
>>
>> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-UAAG10-20010409/
>> --
>> Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>> Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
>> Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783
>
>--
>Ian Jacobs (jacobs@w3.org)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
>Tel:                         +1 831 457-2842
>Cell:                        +1 917 450-8783

Received on Monday, 16 April 2001 14:48:34 UTC