http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2006May/0137.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2006May/att-0137/wcagform_ch2_.html
Comment (including rationale for any proposed change):
2.5.2 If an input error is detected and suggestions for correction are known and can be provided without jeopardizing the security or purpose of the content, the suggestions are provided to the user.
With things like role attribute you can assign a functional role to an element, and other important information such as allowable range. That means that the assistive technology can themselves perform validation.
Makes it all a user agent thing...
Proposed Change:
2.5.2 If an input error is detected and suggestions for correction are known and can be provided without jeopardizing the security or purpose of the content, the suggestions are provided to the user or can be progmaticly determined
The current success criterion does not prevent use of Dynamic Web Content Accessibility, XForms or other technologies to provide information that will allow user agents and assistive technologies to provide suggestions for error correction. We do not feel we need to specifically add "programmatically determined" to the success criterion, but such technology-specific techniques could be added as sufficient as user-agent support for them improves. If role and validation information is programmatically provided in the markup for a technology and testing demonstrates that suggestions for error correction are provided to the user via the user agent or assistive technology, this success criterion has been satisfied. The technology-specific techniques should be provided for such technologies. We have provided some advisory techniques for the use of WAI-ARIA and will promote them and will promote them as they qualify as accessibility supported in some environments.