Email: Comments on WCAG 3.0 draft (5 - Conflicting goals)

[jspellman]

Comment from Email:
from Word docx

Conflicting goals

WCAG 3.0 appears to have three underlying goals.

1. To create a document which takes a holistic view of accessibility across content, agents and tools..
2. To create a set of guidelines that can include provisions for people with disabilities that goes beyond what is allowed using the WCAG 2 rules for inclusion (e.g objective, testable provisions etc.)
3. To create a document in the WCAG 2.0 line that will be picked up by the field and regulatory agencies and thus given the weight and power that a standard or regulation would have. (Hence the efforts to make the initials of the group come out to be WCAG, and its number to be 3.0 even though is the actually the first in its line.)

All of these are needed and laudable (and lauded above). But goals 2 and 3 cannot be met by the same document.
In order to be a standard that is picked up in regulation - it has to be objective, and all of the tests and provisions need to be objective. One simply cannot meet this goal and still have the type of document described in (2) above.

The authors seem to be aware of the inability to address #2 and still have objective criteria and tests. Great pains have been taken in WCAG 3 to describe all sorts of testing that is non-objective (e.g. the use of qualitative rating scales, qualitative rather than quantitative or binary measures, usability testing, etc.) in order to be able to achieve goal two. Unfortunately, this disqualifies it from goal three.

In the end the group will need to either rename the document and have it be a really wonderful guidance document with broad scope for including guidance provisions, or return to the WCAG 2x like criteria for selecting provisions that is needed in a standard that could be adopted in regulation. This latter choice would, of course, put you back in the same bind as the existing WCAG 2 thread. It is aggravating, bang-head-against-the-wall frustrating, etc. but that is the situation. (See more detail below)

[jspellman]

Thank you for your comment. Project members are working on your comment. You may see discussion in the comment thread and we may ask for additional information as we work on it. We will mark the official response when we are finished and close the issue.

[rachaelbradley]

Approved response:

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Thank you for taking the time to review and respond to our initial draft. We agree that the approach taken in the first draft does not sufficiently balance these two requirements. We do believe that we can create a document that balances both successfully. We have captured the need for both in the requirements document and welcome continued review and critique on this balance as we move forward.

[alastc]

The group approved the response above: https://www.w3.org/2022/02/01-ag-minutes.html#t05

[detlevhfischer]

An additional comment:
While the aim of WCAG 2.X has been to provide an objective benchmark for accessiblility, it is widely recognized in the field that the evaluation of web content against many WCAG 2.X success criteria involves judgment calls regarding tolerances - judgment calls that decide whether or not a particular implementation is deemed to pass or fail a success criterion in view of the overall implemented context. By introducing new ways of measurement that go beyond binary pass/fail conformance, WCAG 3.0 aims to provide a more nuanced basis for evaluation, improving the relevance of guidance and assessments particulary in areas where singular and unambiguous criteria for pass/fail decisions cannot be established.