Edit comment LC-1308 for Accessibility Guidelines Working Group

Quick access to

Previous: LC-660 Next: LC-654

Comment LC-1308: Comment Shortname:; Commenter: Charles McCathieNevile <chaals@opera.com>; Message-id:; Section of the document concerned:

or; Refinement of the section concerned:; Status:
assigned to; Type:; Resolution status:
Response drafted Resolution implemented Reply sent to commenter; Response status:
No response from Commenter yet Commenter approved disposition Commenter objected to disposition
Commenter's response (URI):; Comment:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2006Jun/0169.html

In the current framework, while there are success criteria there are no
normative explanations of how they apply to given technologies. Instead,
understanding WCAG 2.0 has been made an informative document.

This is inappropriate to ensure interoperability of tools and content.
This has been a major problem with the implementation of WCAG 1.0, where
important questions of interpretation (such as "are tables OK for
layout?", "do all user agents identify form fields without default text in
them?", "is it OK to rely on javascript?", "are px units OK for layout?"
among others) have gone unanswered for many years leading to a major
breakdown in interoperability between tools, services, and content itself.

I propose that the information be made available in a normative document.
The process requirements for publishing such a document would seem to be
very lightweight in the context of how long it takes the WCAG group to
determine necessary changes, and this will at least ensure that an
authorative answer becomes available for issues which arise.

cheers

Chaals; Related issues: (space separated ids); WG Notes: [EDITORZ] Discussed in the 22 February 2007 telecon: Accepted by unanimous consent. http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/02/22-wai-wcag-minutes.html {not accept} Response: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-comments-wcag20/2007Jun/0086.html; Resolution: It has been challenging to write success criteria that are technology neutral, testable, and easy to understand. We have taken great pains to write the success criteria so that it would be clear which techniques would or would not pass to experts. We are using the Understanding document to make it clear for those who are not experts. However, we don't want to restrict the range of solutions by making the list of known solutions normative. We do not believe that we could update normative Understanding and Technique documents quickly enough to keep pace with the changes in technologies and user agents. The W3C process is long for any document. This approach also allows WCAG 2.0 to avoid introducing some of the "until user agent" problems from WCAG 1.0.; (Please make sure the resolution is adapted for public consumption)