Copy, Paste, and Print

Hi! We should consider adding success criteria addressing the benefit of allowing the user to print, copy, and paste. (This should be in future versions of WCAG as well.)

This came up because the World Wildlife Fund has started a campaign encouraging people to save and distribute electronic documents in their new WWF file format, which is supposedly a PDF file that cannot be printed (http://www.saveaswwf.com/en/). This goes against the most basic principle of accessibility, which is that the user should have control over their experience so they can customize it to meet their needs, and I hope that future versions of WCAG argue against it.

However, UAAG 2.0 says nothing about whether users agents should allow users to print Web content, nor the related techniques for reducing input and reusing content, Copy and Paste. I believe cases can be made the for the accessibility benefit of all three techniques, and Copy and Paste are already in the software accessibility standards ISO 9241-171 and HFES/ANSI 200.2.

*Here is a first attempt at drafting Success Criteria, Intent paragraphs and Examples *(shared in the case of Copy and Paste). In some cases I've included more than one version you can choose from, and I

*a.x Copy: *The user can select any rendered content, status message, or drag-and-drop source, and copy it to the clipboard. (Level A)
*or a.x Copy: *The user can select and copy to the clipboard any rendered content, status message, or drag-and-drop source. (Level A)

Applicability Note: Copy operations from password entry fields and similar secure elements can copy the text that is displayed on the screen rather than the actual text.

*a.y Paste: *The user can paste from the clipboard into any text field input field or drag-and-drop destination. (Level A)

Intent: Copy and paste operations let users avoid manual re-entry of potentially large amounts of data, which is important for users whose disability makes input slow, tiring, painful, or error-prone. It also lets users reduce the cognitive load of memorizing information for later reentry. It is particularly important for people whose input device, dexterity, vision, or ability to multitask make it difficult to use a drag-and-drop interface, and is the standard method for making such interfaces usable by a keyboard or keyboard emulators (as required by guideline 2.1, Keyboard access). User agents are not expected to allow copying text labels in the user interface, such as the names of menus and buttons, except in modes where those labels are being edited.

Examples:
* Aeton cannot use a pointing device, so he users his browser's caret browsing feature to select text, then copies it from one window to another using the keyboard operators for copying, switching windows, and pasting.
* Patil's web browser displays an error message showing some lines of Javascript code. As this would be extremely difficult for her to dictate using her speech recognition software, she instead copies the error text to the clipboard and pastes it into email.

*a.z(a) Print: *The user can print any rendered content to their choice of available printer devices. (Level AA)
Applicability Note: Printing is not required for non-visual or time-based content, such as audio and video.
*or a.z(b) Print: *The user can print any rendered visual, non-time-based content to their choice of available printer devices. (Level AA)

Intent: The ability to print content is important for users who have difficulty reading or interacting with Web content directly in the user agent due to software, hardware, or ergonomic issues. Printing to virtual printer devices can also be a necessary step in converting the content to another electronic format that the user finds more accessible.

Examples:
* Ralph finds it moderately difficult to use the computer, so while he can operate the Web browser, he finds long documents much easier to read when he prints them out so that he can hold them in a more comfortable position.

*If we include these we also need to address a few issues:*

1. What priorities should they have? Copy and paste are in ISO 9241-171 and HFES/ANSI 200.2 at priority level 2, but by narrowing them a bit I think I've got versions that could be in UAAG at Level A.

2. Where should these go in the document? I don't see an obvious place for these to go. Copy and Paste are related to both Mistakes (3.2) and Keyboard Access (2.1), and Printing could be under Perceivable (1.)

3. Should we explicitly address copy-protected content? That is, is the user agent expected to allow the user to copy and/or print content that the author attempted to prevent this using author-settings or DRM?

4. Would we need to add glossary entries for drag-and-drop and/or clipboard?

5. I ended up saying "whose disability makes input slow, tiring, painful, or error-prone" instead of "difficult, tiring, or painful"; we might make that change elsewhere in the document. (The part about error-prone is especially important when talking about copy and paste.)

     Thanks,
     Greg