W3C

– DRAFT –
WCAG3 Equity Subgroup

25 July 2022

Attendees

Present
janina_, jeanne, Laura_Carlson, MichaelC
Regrets
-
Chair
Janina, jeanne
Scribe
jeanne

Meeting minutes

thoughts from the homework?

LC: Scoring and critical errors, including more functional categories better score?

JSa: Complexity is going to be our challenge – we can pick where it is, we can’t avoid it. Tool it well

MC: Complexity of language - our guidance is written by and for English and don’t have a process for writing equivalent in other languages. We can’t write WCAG3 content for all languages and then we define.

MC: Complexity of language - guidance for English and don’t have a process for writing equivalent in other languages. We can’t write WCAG3 content for all languages and then we define.
… We need a way to get expert advice from the field to make it’s way into the normative guideline. Have a process that gets quality and approval. And doesn’t take forever. This is for sure a need for human language, may be a need for other topics as well.
… WCAG 3 at first release must have some visible improvements to equity over WCAG 2, and must have a framework to continue improving equity.

review goals and prioritize

Jeanne Reads:

Define equity

How to evaluate the level of equity supported by the guidelines

Identify the Challenges to equity

Where the challenges are raised and might be addressed

Structural ability to address issues raised on guidelines equity in a reasonable time frame

Look at processes and how to minimize bias in processes

JSa: Super majority is good enough
… Assume you know how to use your assistive tech at a basic level

JSp: Equity in disabilities
… Equity in the guidelines that is appropriate for the full set of human languages

JSa: Example of "don't use double negatives"

JSp: a possible solution is to have normative "follow the rules of your language" and have people

MC: We can’t pretend we have covered all disabilities. We try but we need a process for adding more guidance.

Notes and Agenda

<laura> Merriam-Webster’s “simple definition” of equity is “fairness or justice in the way people are treated.”

<laura> But then, what exactly is fairness? How do we define justice?

<laura> If these concepts are not absolutes, but shaped by each individual’s worldviews and experiences, then the definition may be a perpetually moving target.

<laura> It describes something deeper and more complex than a simple definition of equity.

<laura> Equity is about people getting what they need to succeed like access to opportunity, resources, and support.

Framework draft wiki page

<laura>

<laura> Approximately Equal Symbol (≈)

Possible components of equity
… Disability groups are not differentially disadvantaged by the conformance model, e.g., some groups relegated to AAA or Gold or whatever we call it
… Usability for a site at a given conformance level is approximately equivalent -- across disability groups, though not sure how to measure that
… Groups are not "forgotten about" during the development process
… Awareness of and efforts to resolve issues caused by barriers to participation in the AG, such as culture, language, and time zone.
… Guidance is not omitted because of measurability concerns, instead we come up with realistic ways to measure all guidance
… "Equivalent" in English is not the same as "equal". = vs ≅ It allows more concepts to be addressed. Math symbol is called “congruent” or “approximately equal”]

Use Cases to address in solutions
… Any disability group should not have a disproportionate number of their user needs be optional. For example, cognitive and Deaf needs are disproportionately AAA.
… The company being sued by a hearing disability that wants to prioritize hearing
… A site that teaches ASL being accessible to screen readers.
… Music site that offers audio recordings that aren’t meaningfully captionable but also has program notes, interaction features that should be accessible

Homework: Add more use cases and definition concepts to the Framework document at https://github.com/w3c/silver/wiki/Equity-Framework

Framework document

Minutes manually created (not a transcript), formatted by scribe.perl version 192 (Tue Jun 28 16:55:30 2022 UTC).

Diagnostics

Succeeded: s/It describes something deeper and more complex than a simple definition of equity.//

Succeeded: s/It describes something deeper and more complex than a simple definition of equity.//

Maybe present: Homework, JSa, JSp, LC, MC