Edit comment LC-2662 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

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Comment LC-2662: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Neil Soiffer <NeilS@dessci.com>; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
assigned to; Type:; Comment:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Neil Soiffer <NeilS@dessci.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 4:19 PM
Subject: WCAG2ICT
To: public-comments-wcag20@w3.org

I have a lot of trouble trying understand how this document helps anyone.
On the one hand, the document refers to WCAG "programmatically determined"
repeatedly, and this doesn't make sense in many closed systems such as ATMs
or Kiosks.

On the other hand, it lacks details to help me as a developer figure out
what I need to do. E.g., my personal focus is math. A question that often
comes up is "what is required for math accessibility?" A search for the
term math comes up empty as does a similar search of WCAG 2.0 (not good).
Having spent a good deal of time reading the WCAG guidelines, I know that
math is covered under 1.1.1 (text alternatives) or 1.3.1 (information,
structure, and relationships). So how to meet 1.1.1 in a non-web
environment? WCAG2ICT says to provide a text alternative. Similarly, for
1.3.1, it says the structure should be "programmatically determined or are
available in text". But these don't make sense in many situations away
from a PC such as a kiosk in a museum. The focus should be on providing an
alternative presentation such as speech or braille, not on the actual
underlying content.

The bottom line is that it seems that the document is just lazy: it
doesn't do the work needed to understanding non-web context and simply
parrots WCAG. It leaves it up to the reader to try and figure out if WCAG
makes sense for the particular technology or not and how to adopt WCAG to
the appropriate situations... but isn't the purpose of this document to
inform the reader about how WCAG applies to their non-web situation?

Sincerely,

Neil Soiffer
Senior Scientist
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com
~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~; Related issues: LC- 2670 LC-2668
(space separated ids); WG Notes: https://www.w3.org/2006/02/lc-comments-tracker/35422/WD-wcag2ict-20120727/2670?cid=2670 https://www.w3.org/2006/02/lc-comments-tracker/35422/WD-wcag2ict-20120727/2668?cid=2668; Proposed Resolution: RE Closed functionality We agree that many of the WCAG provisions are based upon information being programmatically determinable and that this would not be of any benefit to closed functionality or closed products. We have created a specific section in the introduction that discusses closed functionality and how to handle them since "programmatic determinability" won't work if assistive technologies cannot be used . It is included below: <insert paragraph on closed functionality> @@@@ from the Closed Functionality section of https://sites.google.com/site/wcag2ict/home/introduction-to-wcag2ict-application-note RE More detail on application of WCAG to different technologies With regard to your comment about the value of additional technical guidance on applying WCAG 2.0 to non-web content and software, we also agree, however, it is beyond the scope of this task force to prepare extensive application materials. We expect that there will soon be a number of training materials etc. on this topic.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)