Proposal for claiming compliance with extensions in UAAG

We have discussed potential problems with allowing the user agent to 
meet UAAG through the use of extensions or addons. This is a proposal to 
address the concerns raised. Jim, Greg and I worked on this Wednesday.

We propose 3 changes to UAAG:

1.  In the section: Conformance Applicability Notes
http://jspellman.github.io/UAAG/UAAG20/#applicability-notes
6. Extensions: Success criteria can be met by a user agent alone or in 
conjunction with extensions and add-ons, as long as those are available 
to users. See Components of UAAG 2.0 Conformance Claims.
Change to:
6. Extensions:  Success criteria can be met by a user agent alone or in 
conjunction with extensions and add-ons, as long long as those are:
(a) discoverable by the user
(b) maintained by the user agent developer
(c) no extra cost to the user
(d) easily installed (i.e. not requiring expert knowledge or editing of 
configuration files, databases, or registry entries)
See Components of UAAG 2.0 Conformance Claims

2: In the section:  "Components of UAAG 2.0 Conformance Claims"
http://jspellman.github.io/UAAG/UAAG20/#conformance-req-components
Put a new item between 3 and 4:
    #4. Type of compliance: [ ] User Agent (full) [ ] Extension-only 
(limited)

3. In the section: Limited Conformance for Extensions
http://jspellman.github.io/UAAG/UAAG20/#conformance-limited
Current: This option may be used for a user agent extension or plug-in 
with limited functionality that wishes to claim UAAG 2.0 conformance. An 
extension or plugin can claim conformance for a specific success 
criterion or a narrow range of success criteria as stated in the claim. 
All other success criteria may be denoted as Not Applicable. The add-in 
must not cause the combined user agent (hosting user agent plus 
installed extension or plug-in) to fail any success criteria that the 
hosting user agent would otherwise pass.

Proposed:
This option may be used for a user agent extension or plug-in with 
limited functionality that wishes to claim UAAG 2.0 conformance. An 
extension or plugin can claim conformance for a specific success 
criterion or a narrow range of success criteria as stated in the claim. 
All other success criteria may be denoted as Not Applicable. UAAG 
recognizes that some extensions may be so specialized to the needs of a 
particular disability that the extension is be mutually exclusive with 
other success criteria of UAAG, but the goal would be for extensions to 
work with the user agent so that any features of the user agent needed 
for UAAG conformance are not broken by one extension. If the extension 
limits other accessibility features of the user agent, then include a 
statement to that effect: "This extension breaks success criterion (SC) 
x.x.x for this class of users because it is intended to meet 'foo' need 
of this other class of user."

[note for group members -- I doubt it should go in the doc, but maybe it 
should.]
An example of this might be a extension that simplifies a page for 
people with autism or high distraction level. That could break 1.8.2 
Move Viewport to Selection and 1.8.3 Provide Viewport Scrollbars.

Received on Thursday, 29 May 2014 16:31:42 UTC