{"id":114,"date":"2006-06-12T14:47:05","date_gmt":"2006-06-12T14:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/2006\/06\/wcag2-revisited"},"modified":"2006-06-18T03:31:29","modified_gmt":"2006-06-18T03:31:29","slug":"wcag2-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lachy.id.au\/log\/2006\/06\/wcag2-revisited","title":{"rendered":"WCAG 2.0 Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Clark has kindly responded<\/a> to\r\n\tsome the many questions I raised in my\r\n last article<\/a>.\r\n\tSpecifically, he responded to the issues of validation, the baseline,\r\n\tmultimedia; abbreviations, jargon and pronunciation, and the WCAG Samurai. \r\n\tI still don\u2019t fully agree with him regarding validity, though I fully understand\r\n\tand accept his point of view. He has satisfactorily responded to the\r\n issues regarding multimedia and full-text alternatives, but I still\r\n have some questions about the baseline. Before I discuss these issues\r\n further, there\u2019s just one thing I\u2019d like to clear up.<\/p>\r\n

Apology<\/h3>\r\n

Joe seemed to be quite offended by one small statement I made at the beginning:\r\n\t\u201c\u2026 his movement against the WCAG Working Group.\u201d As he first commented<\/a> in my\r\n\tarticle and then later published\r\n\ton his blog<\/a>, he\u2019s not against the whole working\r\n\tgroup and I\u2019d like to apologise for suggesting that he was.<\/p>\r\n

However, I\u2019m not sure why he was so offended by me calling his work, in particular,\r\n\tthe WCAG Samurai, a \u201cmovement\u201d:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

I can barely get the ragtag handful of standardistas in this city together\r\n\tonce a month for drinks, let alone run a \u201cmovement.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

I thought the WCAG Samurai seemed to fit the\r\n\t\tdefinition<\/a> of \u201can organized effort\r\n\tby supporters of a common goal\u201d. But regardless of that, I sincerely apologise\r\n\tif this is not the case.<\/p>\r\n

Baseline<\/h3>\r\n
\r\n

[\u2026] If your baseline is set too high, users will have \u201crecourse to complain that your site is inaccessible to them.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

\r\n

Sadly, no. The user has no say in the baseline designation at all<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

I don\u2019t think the user needs to have a say in the baseline designation in\r\n\torder to complain about inaccessibility. Regardless of what the baseline\r\n\tsays, if a user can\u2019t access part of the site for whatever reason, there is\r\n\tnothing to stop them complaining to the organisation about it (unless they can\u2019t\r\n\teven access the contact information). Organisations do have some, at least\r\n\tmoral<\/em>, responsibly towards their users and\/or customers to produce content\r\n\tthat suits their, and their user\u2019s, particular needs.<\/p>\r\n

However, I\u2019d like to get some clarification on what exactly the problem is\r\n\twith the baseline. Joe\u2019s statements about it being possible to make technologies\r\n\tother than plain HTML, CSS and JS accessible are very well known. Such technologies\r\n\tinclude tagged PDFs and captioned\/audio described videos; but all of a sudden\r\n\tthere\u2019s something inherently wrong with a baseline statement that says you\r\n\trequire support for PDF<\/abbr><\/em> or support\r\n\tfor MPEG<\/acronym> and SMIL<\/abbr><\/em>.<\/p>\r\n

In response to Bruce\r\nMaguire\u2019s claims<\/a> that PDF is inaccessible because:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

[\u2026] the resulting document will only be accessible to those people who have\r\n\tthe required software and the skills to use it. [\u2026] Requiring a user to upgrade\r\n\tto this extent in order to read a standard document is like designing Web content\r\n\tpresentation in such a way that most people will have to buy a new computer\r\n\tin order to read it. [\u2026] In any case, some of the PDAs used by blind people\r\n\thave no facilities for accessing PDF files\u201d:<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

Joe\r\nClark wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n