Fwd: Re: WAI Easy Check Document Not Useful

Hi again Tom,

Apologies for the delay in responding. I took your comments back to 
the full Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) so they could 
help me get perspective on your comments about the in progress drafts 
of <http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/preliminary>Easy Checks. We have 
determined that usability testing is a high priority before we 
release this as a published document, thanks in part to your helpful 
comments.  So if you don't mind a few more questions, here they are:

you said:
>the document uses the phrase "Web Accessibility" in
>the title and then says "accessibility of a web page" in the first
>sentence. But there is no explanation of what "accessibility" is.

We can certainly link to those terms elsewhere in WAI but were really 
trying to keep this document focused and easy to use.  So given that 
we have a goal of providing a simple and focused (rather than a 
definitive) resource, is it not reasonable to assume that people 
visiting this particular page might already have basic 
familiarity?  That those who come to a document titled how to 
evaluate for accessibility, understand the term?  Don't you think we 
are pretty safe to assume that they know in a general way at least, 
what the reference is to?

you said:
>... I suggest producing
>a simplified checker which only checks a few items
>and explains them in plan language.

We did try for plain language - and continue to do that with each 
draft revision - but producing a simplified checker is unfortunately 
beyond the scope of what EO can take on at this time.

To your suggestion that we provide more explanation of what each item 
is, you said:
>I suggest explaining what the web feature is for, what a good one is and
>then how to check it. ...

Which prompts me to yet another question for you, because your 
suggestion is a perfect synopsis of what we thought we were doing. 
Was the expand/collapse feature within each section unclear?  We have 
added more language to explain how to open each subheading - does that help?

Finally, we are continuing to work on this document because of the 
very positive response we have had from parts of the community.  We 
are grateful for your input and hope you will continue to help us to 
make it better.

Best,
Sharron
---------------------
Sharron Rush | Executive Director | Knowbility
Co-Chair, Education and Outreach Working Group | WAI, W3C
Equal access to technology for people with disability

From: Tom Worthington <tom.worthington@tomw.net.au>
To: Sharron Rush <srush@knowbility.org>, wai-eo-editors@w3.org

On 16/10/13 14:54, Sharron Rush wrote:

>... you said ... non-expert will not be familiar with ...

Yes. As an example the document uses the phrase "Web Accessibility" in
the title and then says "accessibility of a web page" in the first
sentence. But there is no explanation of what "accessibility" is.

Further down the page says "FF Toolbar", "IE WAT", "WCAG Links",
"Practicing with BAD", which will not make much sense to the uninitiated.

>Generally we find that the results of automated checkers are too
>overwhelming and complex for non-experts. ...

That is not my experience. I find they can cope. But I suggest producing
a simplified checker which only checks a few items
and explains them in plan language.

>* ...explain how to do additional manual checks ...
>
>I am confused by this suggestion since the document is, in fact, a
>series of explanations of how to do additional manual checks. ...

I suggest explaining what the web feature is for, what a good one is and
then how to check it. For example, the document introduces page titles
by saying: "Page titles are ... shown in the window title bar in some
browsers ...". But it does not actually say what a page title is.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
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