ACTION-846 and ACTION-847 concerning platform limitations in Conformance section

I have two open action items about clarifying the paragraphs in the in the Conformance section that deal with how the "Not Applicable" exemption can be used in conformance claims. The goal is to restrict these to a limited set of reasons, in order to avoid leaving it so broad or subjective that the exemption could be applied to almost anything.


    Proposed new wording for paragraphs 7 and 9

(Asterisks enclose added or substituted text, and square brackets indicate where text was deleted but not replaced. Note that all but one of the changes in paragraph 7 are merely changing singular to plural.)

7. Platform Limitations: If the platform [] does not support *capabilities* necessary for *some* UAAG 2.0 success *criteria*, list the success *criteria* and the feature*s*. For these listed technologies, the *declarations section* can claim that the success criteria do not apply *due to platform limitations*. []

     *Note: For the purpose of paragraphs 7 and 9, platform includes only the hardware, operating system, or cross-platform operating environment, as these generally cannot be replaced without substantially changing the target market. For example, if the user agent runs on an operating system that does not provide platform accessibility services, a conformance claim for this configuration can list the result for each related success criterion as "Not applicable due to platform limitations", and describe the specific platform limitation. However, if the user agent designers choose to use a widget library that does not support the platform accessibility services, they could not claim an exemption based on that decision.*

9. Declarations: For each success criterion, provide a declaration of either:
     a. whether or not the success criterion has been satisfied; or
     b. declaration that the success criterion is not applicable and a rationale for why not *from the following choices, along with appropriate details:
         1.  Not applicable due constraints of the platform, as per Paragraph 7 above (e.g. color handling when the browser is designed for a monochrome device, video handling in a purely audio browser, or interprocess communication on an operating system that does not support multitasking)
         2. Not applicable due to a constrained input set (e.g. audio requirements when a help system that only displays text content from HTML files included with the product)
         3. Not applicable due to limited output modalities (e.g. video handling in a browser that only does audio output, even though the platform may support video)*


    For comparison, here is the existing wording:


7. Platform Limitations: If the platform (hardware or operating system) does not support a capability necessary for a given UAAG 2.0 success criterion, list the success criterion and the feature (e.g. a mobile operating system does not support platform accessibility services, therefore the user agent cannot meet success criterion 4.1.2). For these listed technologies, the user agent can claim that the success criteria do not apply.

9. Declarations: For each success criterion, provide a declaration of either

     a. whether or not the success criterion has been satisfied; or
     b. declaration that the success criterion is not applicable and a rationale for why not

     Thanks,
     Greg