Re: Starter comments on WCAG 2.0 draft

[Phill, in case this message does not go to the list, could you
forward it for me please?]

I don't think invalid code is a major accessibility issue, and
therefore that it should NOT be a level 1 requirement to have valid
code.

I think that the lack of an appropriate definition of accessibility
that is linked to testing methods and criteria, prevents us from being
able to clearly define in guidelines what an accessibility barrier is,
and what are its negative consequences (like impact on end users).
Defining accessibility as "possibility for everyone to access content
/ use authoring tools for generate contents" is, I think,  too general
to be operable. "Usability for disabled people" is more practical
because it inherits from the def. of usability appropriate contextual
aspects that make it more operational. Eg. one def. of usability says
(approximately) "... effectiveness, productivity and satisfaction for
GIVEN users, in GIVEN operational situations, while aiming at GIVEN
goals". On the one hand the focus on effectiveness, productivity and
satisfaction allows one to think of users performance criteria (eg. we
look how a sample of users behave when put in front of a web site; and
from observations we derive metrics that are associated to those 3
criteria, like number of errors that is associated to effectiveness).
This is good because accessibility   encompasses human perception and
cognitive processes.
On the other hand the def. makes explicit 3 important contextual
factors: Who we're dealing with,  What they should be doing and
Where/When/How. This allows one to say (and test) for example that
blind users using JAWS v.3.5 on IE 5.5 cannot (or can) subscribe to a
newsletter.

Both the contextualization and the focus on user performance criteria
are missing or not clear enough with some currently used definitions
of accessibility.

If they were, it would be easier to understand if invalid html code is
or not an accessibility issue, and to what extent (meaning "what kind
of negative impact it has on which kind of user in which kind of
situation wrt a certain goal"). For example, Slatin's and Rush'
definition (with an accessible web site disabled users can achieve the
same goals as non-disabled people) is quite operational. If we were to
use that definition, the code validity issue could be investigated by
finding cases where an invalid page  prevented disabled users to
achieve something that other ones were able to.

I think we could try to deepen this issue, at least by finding out
concrete cases where some AT failed to function properly to such an
extent that the violation would be associated to a level 1 violation.

While I agree with all has been said about why a valid page is a good
thing, in my experience I've seen only one case where invalid code
prevented a user of a non-recent version of JAWS to perceive (and
therefore understand and use) a home page of a site. The main problem
was the inability to handle different frames, which made the user
unable to skip onto other frames of the (framed) page. Other usages of
screen readers, magnifiers, transcoders, PDAs, textual browsers on
real web pages did not show this kind of problem (for the users I did
accessibility testing
with).

My best,

-- 
        Giorgio Brajnik
______________________________________________________________________
Dip. di Matematica e Informatica   | voice: +39 (0432) 55.8445
Università di Udine                | fax:   +39 (0432) 55.8499
Via delle Scienze, 206             | email: giorgio@dimi.uniud.it
Loc. Rizzi -- 33100 Udine -- ITALY | http://www.dimi.uniud.it/giorgio

On 7/25/05, Phill Jenkins <pjenkins@us.ibm.com> wrote:
>  
> Valid code is NOT a disability issue.   
> If a piece of software doesn't compile, it's not a disability issue.  If a
> piece of hardware is physically broken, is not a disability issue.  I
> believe we need to keep the definition of accessibility to only deal with
> disabilities.  If not, we'll go crazy adding all the other prerequisites;
> such as: Is there electricity?  Are there phone lines to access the
> internet?, Is there a working computer?  Is everything bug free? etc.etc. 
>  
> I believe the code should be valid, just not that that should be in an
> accessibility checklist for Authoring tool developers.  They have other
> checklist for that stuff - lets not loose credibility with them... 
>  
> Regards,
>  Phill Jenkins
>  IBM Worldwide Accessibility Center
>

Received on Wednesday, 27 July 2005 16:05:36 UTC