A Framework for Applying the WCAG in the Real World
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Excellent paper by Brian Kelly (our very own user lisbk) et al. "Forcing Standardization or Accommodating Diversity? A Framework for Applying the WCAG in the Real World"
it even gets some love from Joe Clark:
| Quote: |
| It’s about twice as long as it needs to be |
... in Joe's inimitable style, that's high praise
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Patrick H. Lauke / webmaster / University of Salford
co-lead: WaSP Accesibility Task Force
take it to the streets ... WaSP Street Team
personal: splintered | photographia | redux
co-author: Web Accessibility - Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
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| redux wrote: | ||
it even gets some love from Joe Clark:
... in Joe's inimitable style, that's high praise |
Brilliant
Just what I needed after a hellish commute on a dismal Monday morning. I wonder if David is also a member here...?_________________
Kajun
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Interesting article.
| UKOLN wrote: |
| Theoretical nature of the guidelines: There is a feeling that the guidelines are too theoretical and are based on a W3C perspective rather than real-world experiences. |
Well, there's another call to arms.
Who on here think there are still too few developers getting involved with WCAG and WAI?
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Jon Gibbins :// blogs at dotjay.co.uk, works with Analog.
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I think if they attempted to facilitate a more open discussion, then more developers would get involved. Right now, I really don't have the time to mess around with silly e-mail mailing lists. Perhaps they could use technology to its advantage and use bulletin boards, project management software, and all the other tools, to involve interested developers more. I don't want to have to click through hundreds of mails per thread; one page will do it for me, thanks. But that's just me.
Also, as Joe mentions, the closed nature of the "real" group, and the banished nature of the ancillary - and perhaps more enlightened - developers makes it feel very oppresive and elitist.
_________________
Kajun
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Sorry, at risk of going slightly off-topic here, but...
I joined the WAI-IG mailing list a couple of years ago. I eventually got tired of trawling through the mailing list every day (I also find I have plenty to do without that). I've recently joined again and the traffic doesn't seem to bad.
But I guess it's the WCAG 2.0 Public Comments list or WAI-GL list that's more of interest here, the first of which has had a grand total of four posts through April.
_________________
Jon Gibbins :// blogs at dotjay.co.uk, works with Analog.
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Just reading through this now and there are some errors and fallacies, for example:
| Quote: |
| For example a strict interpretation of the priority 2 guidelines which states "... use the latest versions [of W3C technologies] when supported" would mean that a WCAG AA conformant HTML 4 Web site would be degraded to WCAG A conformance overnight when XHTML 1.0 was officially released! |
The author demonstrates a lack of understanding of the difference between XHTML and HTML and what "latest version" actually means.
In the same paragraph they claim that just be using GIF images instead of (W3C approved) PNG a website is non-compliant.
_________________
The Watchmaker Project - my personal blog
29digital Design Studio - freelance web design/development
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| redux wrote: |
| Excellent paper by Brian Kelly (our very own user lisbk) et al. "Forcing Standardization or Accommodating Diversity? A Framework for Applying the WCAG in the Real World"
|
Hi Patrick
Many thanks foir ther comments.
Interestingly a speaker who was on just before me (Giorgio Brajnik, University of Udine and former boss of Usablenet) stated that he thought that the WAI dependence on Universal Design was a mistake. WE had lunch togrther and agreed on the importance of context in accessibility.
Note that the accomjpanying slies are also linked in from
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/...
Brian
_________________
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
UK
BA2 7AY
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| Buddy Bradley wrote: | ||
Just reading through this now and there are some errors and fallacies, for example:
The author demonstrates a lack of understanding of the difference between XHTML and HTML and what "latest version" actually means. |
Hi Buddy
Thanks for your comments.
I'll stand by my quote - the guidelines *can* be interpretted in this way i.e. XHTML is the latest version of the W3C's recommended description language for standard Web resources. I appreciate that another view is that XHTML is not HTML - but I did not mentuion HTML in my previous statement.
| Quote: |
| In the same paragraph they claim that just be using GIF images instead of (W3C approved) PNG a website is non-compliant. |
Absolutely - the WCAG guidelines are unambigious here, surely.
Note that I'm not saying you can't use GIF; simply that the WCAG guidelines are flawed. How else can "Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task" be interpreted? (I appreciate that 'appropriate' could provide an escape route - in which case the guidelines fail be be clear and unambiguous.
Brian
_________________
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
UK
BA2 7AY
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| Kajun wrote: |
| I think if they attempted to facilitate a more open discussion, then more developers would get involved. |
Two years ago I submitted a proposal to the WWW2003 conferecne for a panel session on "Implementing Web Accessibility Is Difficult" which was meant to facilitate debate between the WAI guidelinbes peoplke and the Web development community. Unfortunately this title was felt to be too provocative and would undermine WAI, so we ended up with a bland "Web Accessibility: Will WCAG 2.0 Better Meet Today's Challenges?"
The slides are available at
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/...
Brian
_________________
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
BATH
UK
BA2 7AY
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i took the liberty of making your above link clickable, brian._________________
Patrick H. Lauke / webmaster / University of Salford
co-lead: WaSP Accesibility Task Force
take it to the streets ... WaSP Street Team
personal: splintered | photographia | redux
co-author: Web Accessibility - Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
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It's a good paper, have you thought to extend it to cover people from industry, what perhaps more people might determine to be "The real world". That isn't to slate academia, however the pressures in the market place are of a different ilk getting paid, explaining to clients that have no concept of accessibility, potential trade offs between accessibility and design, additional charges, etc. Each of these are real world issues, rather than implementation issues._________________
Red Ant
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| lisbk wrote: |
| Note that I'm not saying you can't use GIF; simply that the WCAG guidelines are flawed. How else can "Use W3C technologies when they are available and appropriate for a task" be interpreted? (I appreciate that 'appropriate' could provide an escape route - in which case the guidelines fail be be clear and unambiguous.
Brian |
Well, "available and appropriate for the task" is the caveat that applies in situtations like this. You could say, for example:
- a PNG of an image may come out larger than a GIF
- IE doesn't properly support PNG
Either of those could mean that PNG is not appropriate for a particular task.
Similarly, you could use arguments about mime-conformance and browser compatibility to say that XHTML is not appropriate for a particular task and that HTML should be used instead (not that I'd agree with that, but still, it's a valid argument)
So by the same token, for any situation in which a W3C technology could be used, the guidelines do not mandate that you use it, they say that you should use it if it's the right choice - if it's appropriate.
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“Recommend”_________________
};-) http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/
WVYFC chose the Yorkshire Air Ambulance as the main charity to fund raise for in 2006
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| dotjay wrote: |
| Who on here think there are still too few developers getting involved with WCAG and WAI? |
I will take it one step further - who thinks there are far to many developers who do not even understand what the W3C and it's components even say?
I have noted here before that I now realize just how poor my web training really was. I am really more self taught and all the time I thought I was doin accessibility I was not, util this forum and GAWDS opened my eyes.
I knew of the WAI, WCAG, W3C - but any attempt I made to get helpt there just turned me away as I understood little of what I read.
Now my knowledge of terms and ideas is better thanks to you all and I now find myself there more often and following arguements here about what checkpoint ?? really means.....
I would humblely suggest that the W3C should come down a few notches and be understandable for those who are supposed to be using it. That standards would be more wide spread if little guys could understand it and not just those of you in the upper levels. By this I mean you with a lot of experiance and jobs in universities etc.. You with the industry names and quoted web sites like Joe Clark, tommy olsson, redux, malarkey...... to name a few off the top, theare are certainly more here.
You preach standards and have done alot, because you understand the standards. Redux, malarkey, Tommy, you have successfull sites and blogs and articles because you can explain things in a way the rest of us understand. It was a newsletter by redux that brought me here and through the board here to GAWDS.
Maybe the W3C could be more efficiant and move the use of standards forward if the standards were understandable to the new designers and developers. Maybe a micro site "W3C for Dummies"
I will read this article eventually, and love the comment by Joe Clark, but that I can take and slap on the title. That title tells a beginner that if i do not even understand the title or can say it three times fast, then I need not read it as I will not understand anything anyways.
Your average developer can not get involved with the W3C, it is like a private club. We are lucky if we can get involved through a group like GAWDS as I am.
Maybe it is time for the W3C to come down off the mountain and meet it's followers. Because there are to few of you who can take your understanding of their message and actually write that message in a way the rest of us, especially the newbies can understand.
The thread over at Sitepoint suggests that far to many of those responsible for teaching the next generation developers themselves do not even understand what the standards are to do.
_________________
Kyle J. Lamson
Analyst/Programmer III, State of Alaska
--
LSW-WebDesign.com & DarkShadow-Designs.com
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| lsw wrote: |
| I will take it one step further - who thinks there are far to many developers who do not even understand what the W3C and it's components even say? |
This is certainly true. My like you, my knowledge has grown out of the kind help of others on this forum. I see these guys as translators. The W3C are able to build the standards, but others are needed to convey those standards to the rest of us, or at least help figure them out for ourselves. Of course, translations shouldn't really be needed anyway. W3C are hardly accessible to the beginner.
_________________
Jon Gibbins :// blogs at dotjay.co.uk, works with Analog.
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