EO comments reviewed Dec 19 (snap shot) from Jim Allan on 2013-12-19 (w3c-wai-ua@w3.org from October to December 2013)

From: Jim Allan <jimallan@tsbvi.edu>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2013 12:33:15 -0600
To: WAI-ua <w3c-wai-ua@w3.org>
Message-ID: <CA+=z1WmamZQ=npr7U0gYcoGPENK2VS1UdFyJjSYH4hk_z_ji8A@mail.gmail.com>

UAAG Overall

- Congrats on getting to this stage with the technical material! It
would be good to re-look at the abstract and intro now. A few rough notes
are below, although I haven't pointed out all areas that I think need work.
{Shawn}

Abstract <http://www.w3.org/TR/UAAG20/#abstract>

- I think the abstract needs editing to be clearer, more direct, and
simpler.{Shawn}
- *Current text:* "The "User Agent Accessibility Guidelines 2.0" (UAAG
2.0) is part of a series of accessibility guidelines published by the W3C
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)."
*Suggested edit:* "UAAG is introduced in the User Agent Accessibility
Guidelines (UAAG) Overview <http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/uaag>."
(This comment was made July
2010<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-uaag2-comments/2010Jul/0000.html>and
September
2013<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-uaag2-comments/2013Sep/0000.html>
.){Shawn}
- Last sentence of second paragraph is not clear. I don't really
understand what it is for.

"Technologies not addressed directly by UAAG 2.0 (e.g. assistive
technologies for braille rendering) will be essential to ensuring Web
access for some users with disabilities.

{Sylvie, 13 December 2013}

Status of this Document

- *Location:* Under "May be Superseded", first paragraph, third
sentence, (two instances).
*Current wording:* "W3C" acronym expansion "the World Wide Web
Consortium", which results in the phrases "A list of current the World Wide
Web Consortium publications" and "report can be found in the the World Wide
Web Consortium technical reports".
*Suggested revision:* Either remove "the" from the acronym expansion,
leaving just "World Wide Web Consortium", or remove the acronym expansion
completely.
*Rationale:* First option is more accurate, second option because the
acronym "W3C" is more recognizable than its expansion (and faster to hear).
*Note:* There are other instances in the document ... a code search for
'title="the World ..."' should find them all. {Bim}
- Agree {Sharron 11 December}

Overview

- *Location:* 3rd sentence
*Current wording:* ...have control over their environment for accessing
the web.
*Suggested revision:* ...have equal control over the environment they
use to access the web.
*Rationale:* No one has full "control over their environment," but all
should have the same degree of control {Sharron, 11 December}
- *Location:* Next to last sentence
*Current wording:* Although author preferences are important, UAAG 2.0
includes requirements to override certain author preferences when the user
would not otherwise be able to access that content.
*Suggested revision:* Omit
*Rationale:* Seems like a non sequitur. Don't understand why that aspect
of UAAG is particularly called out, seems a distraction. {Sharron, 11
December}
- Needs editing. For example "Improving accessibility means considering
a wide range of disabilities." needs to be stronger.
These include visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, language,
learning, neurological disabilities, and disabilities related to aging." —
consider using updated WAI wording: including auditory, cognitive,
neurological, physical, speech, and visual disabilities.
"The UAWG expects that software that satisfies the requirements of UAAG
2.0 will be more flexible, manageable, extensible, and beneficial for a
broad range of users." -- Why is this in the normative guidelines?{shawn}

UAAG 2.0 Layers of Guidance

- "Each success criterion is assigned a level. The levels are designed
to meet the needs of different groups and different situations: A (low, or
basic, conformance), AA (recommended conformance), and AAA (highest
conformance).' uses different terminology than the Levels sections, which
say: "A (basic), AA (recommended), and AAA (advanced)" {shawn}
- In the paragraph explaining the principles, what about adding a link
to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. It would allow the reader to
go to WCAG if they want to look at WCAG's principles.
Related text:

Principles 1, 2, and 3 are parallel to Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

{Sylvie, 13 December}

Levels of Conformance

- This section jumps around. The heading is "Levels of Conformance" but
only the first section is about conformance. See levels comments on
Implementing
below<http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/UAAG_review#Levels_of_Conformance_.28Implementing.29>.
Maybe this section should stay "Levels of Conformance" and contain only the
following. {Shawn}

User agents can conform to UAAG 2.0 at one of three conformance levels: A
(basic), AA (recommended), and AAA (advanced). The three levels of UAAG 2.0
conformance are based on the corresponding level designations (A, AA, or
AAA) of the individual success criteria (i.e., specific requirements). The
user agent can conform to a level by meeting the success criteria of that
level and the levels below it.

- Level A conformance: The user agent complies with all applicable level
A success criteria.
- Level AA conformance: The user agent complies with all applicable
level A and AA success criteria.
- Level AAA conformance: The user agent complies with all applicable
level A, AA, and AAA success criteria.

For details about what each level represents, how the levels were
determined, and how user agent developers and managers can use the levels
for prioritizing accessibility improvements and designing user interfaces, *see
<Level A, A, AAA in Implementing UAAG>*.
UAAG 2.0 Guidelines

- *Location:* 1st and only sentence sentence
Current wording: The guidelines, success criteria, their notes, and the
conformance applicability notes are normative. Guideline summaries are
informative.
*Question:* is there a reason why "normative" is not linked to a
definition and "informative" is? Or is it an oversight? {Sharron, 11
December}
- *Location:* UAAG 2.0 Conformance Applicability Notes, item 3
Current wording: RFC 2119 <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119> language
not used
*Comment:* Suggest a link from "RFC
2119<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119>"
to a glossary item
{Howard, 12 December}
- *Location:* Summary item 1.1.4
Current wording: It's recommended that the user can configure the
caption text and that text or sign language alternative cannot obscure the
video or the controls (1.1.4).
*Comment:* I'm not sure if this means caption text should not be
configurable to obscure the video or controls.
*Suggested wording:* It's recommended that the user can configure the
caption text but that text or sign language alternative cannot be
configured to obscure the video or the controls (1.1.4). {Howard, 12
December}
- I don't like "but" in that sentence. I started to suggest a
different edit, but then when I went and looked at the SC and
the summary,
they seem to be out of synch, so I added the comment below rather than
working on a sentence that will likely change anyway.{Shawn}
- *Location:* Guideline
1.1<http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-UAAG20-20131107/Overview.html#gl-access-alternative-content>Summary
*Comment:* The summary does not match the success criteria.
{Shawn}

Implementing UAAG Overall (Implementing)

- The document is called "Implementing UAAG" however it seems to provide
very little specific guidance on actually implementing UAAG technically.
Instead it provides information on how people with disabilities use the
requirements of UAAG. Thus the title seems very misleading -- that the doc
will provide something that it does not. It seems it would be better titled
"Understanding UAAG". {Shawn}
- comment {name}

Levels of Conformance (Implementing)

- *Current wording:* "Levels of Conformance" (heading)
*Suggested revision:* "Levels A, AA, AAA"
*Rationale:* This section is broader than conformance -- it's about the
level of each SC, how they were determined, what they mean, and how UA
developers can use them. {Shawn}
- I think it's good that you moved most of the levels info to
Implementing<http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/WD-IMPLEMENTING-UAAG20-20131107/#intro-conf-levels>.
I suggest the following restructuring of the section for flow and to focus
on what most readers will be interested in -- that is, what the levels mean
(not how you determined them) and how they can be used. (Follow up to sept
2013 comment<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-uaag2-comments/2013Sep/0001.html>.)
{Shawn}

The level designations of the individual success criteria balance the needs
of people with disabilities with user agent implementation difficulty.
(Specific factors that were considered in determining the level of each
success criterion include: severity of impact to users; inconvenience to
other users, including users with other disabilities; current
implementations; difficulty of implementation; and size of scope.[@@ "size
of scope" needs to be explained.]) Generally:

- *Level A* success criteria address aspects of user agents that:
- can block some people with disabilities from getting information or
accomplishing a task, and/or
- are relatively easy for developers to implement or are common in
the existing user agents.
- *Level AA* success criteria address aspects of user agents that:
- can cause difficulty for some people with disabilities in getting
information or accomplishing a task (including tasks causing excessive
fatigue), and/or
- may be more difficult for developers to implement.
- *Level AAA* success criteria address aspects of user agents that:
- improve accessibility or reduces fatigue for some people with
disabilities, and/or,
- may be very difficult for developers to implement.

The level designation of individual success criteria is based on the the
overall situation considering all disabilities and all user agents. Because
of the wide variety of disabilities and user agents, the level designations
might not match specific circumstances. Even user agents that conform at
the highest level (AAA) may not be accessible to individuals with all
types, degrees, or combinations of disability.
Using Levels

Developers of user agents may want to use the levels to:

- Help prioritize accessibility improvements to their projects, giving
more weight to the level A and AA success criteria.
- Help decide how to provide accessibility functionality in the user
interface, for example, putting Level A functionality in a toolbar, Level
AA in the main preference area, and Level AAA in an "Advanced settings"
dialog box.

--
Jim Allan, Accessibility Coordinator & Webmaster
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45th St., Austin, Texas 78756
voice 512.206.9315 fax: 512.206.9264 http://www.tsbvi.edu/
"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." McLuhan, 1964

Received on Thursday, 19 December 2013 18:33:40 UTC