Edit comment LC-2496 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

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Comment LC-2496: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Glenda Sims < glenda.sims@deque.com>; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
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Commenter's response (URI):; Comment:
It might be useful to clearly indicate the definition of the words "should" and "must" for the purpose of requirements versus recommendations. This would apply to all parts of WCAG 2.0. I mentioning it here on this technique (G141), because this is where I recently had a debate about what "should" means versus what "must" means.

Proposed Change:
Make it obvious that "should" is recommended while "must" is required. You could use the definitions found at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt. You could also consider making the words "must" and "should" hotlink to the definition. Or, not. Just an idea.; Related issues: (space separated ids); WG Notes: I think this is a useful observation. Although we do not use these terms in a non-standard way, there has been some confusion and this is found in policy, and in automated evaluation tools where "shoulds" become "musts" ... I think we should add a paragraph The "understanding conformance." http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/conformance.html#uc-conformance-requirements-head says "This section will be expanded over time to address questions that may arise or to provide new examples of ways to meet the different conformance requirements." Add after the paragraph that says "The note points out that authors are encouraged to go beyond conformance to a particular level and to complete, and report if they desire, any progress toward higher levels of conformance. <Add new paragraph> The words MUST, SHOULD and MAY found in the WCAG docments are the standard use of those words as they are found in standards. (See http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2119.txt) The word "must" means something is "required" within the context the section it is found. If it appears in a Success Criteria then the condition is required to meet the Success Criteria. If it is found in a technique, then the condition is required to successfully implement the technique. (Note: if "must" appears in a technique, it is important to understand that although it is necessary to meet the technique, that does not mean the technique is necessary to meet the Success Criteria. There may be other techniques which can be used to meet the Success Criteria that do not employ that technique and therefore the "musts" found in that particular technique may not be required to successfully meet that specific Success Criteria.) The word "should" indicates that a condition is "recommended" but <em>not</em> required. </add> Proposed response: Thanks you Glenda for the recommendation. We have updated the "Understanding Conformance" section of the Understanding Document to introduce a discussion of SHOULD vs MUST. It will read as follows: [insert text above]. Recommended Action @@ Add the above paragraph to the "Understanding Conformance Document" as indicated above. We have added a discussion of the uses of "must" and "should" in techniques to the introduction to the Techniques document. We hope that this will clarify interpretations of the techniques. We are not using RFC 2119 in our standard because it cannot be applied in a standard like ours with 3 levels of conformance. Please let us know whether this still leaves misinterpretations in our uses of these terms.; Resolution: We have added a discussion of the uses of "must" and "should" in techniques to the introduction to the Techniques document. We hope that this will clarify interpretations of the techniques. We are not using RFC 2119 in our standard because it cannot be applied in a standard like ours with 3 levels of conformance. Please let us know whether this still leaves misinterpretations in our uses of these terms.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)