Authoring Tool Guidelines Working Group
This document lists the issues raised during (or following) the Proposed Recommendation review of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0, from 26 October 1999 to 24 November 1999 and their resolution by the Working Group. It will also record minority opinions where the Working Group is not able to reach a complete consensus.
Proposed resolutions listed here are based on meetings and may be changed by the working group.
This document provides a part of the content for the Working Group's issues list.
Note: Issues are listed with proposed resolutions. These reflect the decisions of the working group, but the formal responsibility for determining resolution lies with the Director of the W3C, on advice from the Advisory Committee membership.
As of 3 January 2000, the working group considers the issues have been resolved, and the 22 December draft forms a suitable basis for a recommendation.
There is a lot of work for an authoring tool developer to determine the extent to which they can automatically implement checkpoints in Web Content Guidelines, which are required by relative priority checkpoints
Raised by: Member Review, Bruce Roberts
This has been discussed in meetings on 24 November, 29 November, 30 November, 1 December, 6 December, and in email threads
5 sub-issues:
Raised by: Member Review
The number of checkpoints that must be satisfied is many more than listed in the checklist, since relative priority checkpoints effectively require satisfying a number of WCAG checkpoints
Proposed resoution: This is true. A note was added to the checklists to make this clearer.
Raised by: Member Review
Disucessed in two threads (one, two) and in meetings 24 November and 29 November, 30 November
Proposed resoution: No. This could be construed as providing endorsement to tools that do not meet basic requirements for accessibility.
Should the checklists also have a link to the techniques document?
Raised by: Member Review
Discussed in meetings 24 November, 30 November
Proposed resolution: Yes (since it is easy). Done in latest checklists.
Is it appropriate for these guidelines to be used as a basis for making procurement decisions?
Raised by: Member review, another member review, Bruce Roberts
Discussed in email threads (one, two), meetings 24 november and 29 November, 30 November
Proposed Resolution: The working group should not be saying that other groups cannot use these guidelines. However, it is appropriate to point to our example conformance evaluations so that we can give some idea of the current status of tools. Suggested language has been added to the conformance section in the latest draft, although the link is not yet active
What level of skill in producing accessible markup can the developer assume on the part of the author? This has an impact on the assignment of priorities to the checkpoints. Alternatively, should we base the priority levels directly on author skill level?
Raised by: Bruce Roberts
This issue has been discussed in a number of threads on the mailing list (one, two, three, four), in meetings 30 November, 8 december
Proposed Resolution: The priorities assume that the author is a competent but not expert user of the tool, with little or no a priori knowledge of accessibility requirements. Suggested language has been added to the priority section in the latest draft
A development cycle may mean that the product design cannot be changed for some time before it is released. If there is a new W3C Recommendation released in that time, and the tool does not implement it, does it fail to conform?
Raised by: Member review
Proposed Resolution: No. The tool can still conform, if it implements whatever Recommendation was available at the appropriate time.
Raised by: Member Review
Proposed Resolution: Whoever does a conformance evaluation. Reviewers should refer to the sample evaluations available for guidance.
Should these checkpoints have different priorities, or are they in fact redundant?
Raised by: Greg Lowney
Answered in email thread. Confirmed in meeting 30 November
Proposed Resolution: These issues have been dealt with by the working group before, and the document reflects the Working Group's decisions.
Does checkpoint 7.1 imply that accessibility conventions may require that access is better than is normally provided for a particular operating system?
Raised by: Greg Lowney
Answered in email thread. Confirmed in meeting 30 November
Proposed Resolution: It does imply that.
Does checkpoint 1.2 require accessibility information to be preserved when converting between file formats?
Raised by: Bridie Saccocio
Answered in email thread. Confirmed in meeting 30 November
Proposed Resolution: It does.
Does a tool have to default to generating accessible content, or can it be an option?
Raised by: Greg Lowney
Answered in email thread. Confirmed in meeting 30 November. See also discussion of this question in relation to another checkpoint, during Last call
Proposed resolution: No, but note also checkpoint 5.2.
Raised by: Bridie Saccocio
Answered in email thread. Confirmed in meeting 30 November
Proposed Resolution: Yes
Where a tool does not provide the functionality required by checkpoints 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6, do the checkpoints require the addition of these features to a tool?
Raised by: Bridie Saccocio
Answered in email thread, confirmed in meeting 30 November
Proposed Resolution: Yes
There were also responses which contained suggestions for editorial amendments or clarifications. (Where substantive issues were also raised they are addressed above)
Last Modified $Date: 2000/11/08 08:11:50 $ by Charles McCathieNevile