Learning Disabilities of America - Technology Committee Comments:
WCAG 2.1 For Learning Disabilities and Cognitive Disabilities
Thank you for providing this opportunity to comment. It is clear a significant amount of time, thought and energy has been invested in this document, the SCs and the process. It is refreshing to see a focus being placed on the accessibility needs of people with learning and cognitive impairments. The LDA – Technology Committee applauds these efforts. This Feedback is specifically from Steve Noble, Carolyn Phillips, Maria Kelley, Martha Rust, Liz Persaud and Sam Peters who are members of the LDA – Technology Committee.
Our primary focus was on addressing these questions:
-
How important are the proposed COGA Success Criteria for users?
-
Do the COGA Success Criteria fully address current user needs for digital learning and web content?
-
All of the new 10 proposed COGA Success Criteria are important elements for people with learning disabilities and should be kept. The extensive descriptions which are provided in the GitHub comments are excellent.
We strongly encourage you to keep all of the 10 proposed SC. We appreciate the Plain English Summary. Prioritizing the SC difficult without some type of rubric to score them. We did consider each of these and placed them in 2 Priority groups:
(1) First priority:
• Support Personalization (Success Criterion 1.3.4)
• Timeouts (Success Criterion 2.2.6)
• Familiar Design (minimum) (Success Criterion 3.2.7)
• Extra Symbols (Success Criterion 3.1.9)
• Minimize User Errors (Success Criterion 3.3.7)
• Provide Support (Success Criterion 3.3.9)
• Undo (Success Criterion 3.3.8)
• Plain Language (Success Criterion 3.1.7)
(2) Second priority:
• Manageable Blocks (Success Criterion 3.1.8)
• Interruptions (minimum) (Success Criterion 2.2.8)
With that stated, our preference would be for all of these to be adopted. Each one of them has a possible connection to the access needs of people with learning disabilities.
- The proposed COGA Success Criteria do address user needs for digital learning and web content. These SC are needed, useful and valued. At the risk of repeating the excellent comments already put together in the GitHub documentation, here are a more thoughts on the SC.
• Support Personalization (Success Criterion 1.3.4)
o Value: The ability to control aspects of a user interface such that the user can reduce the complexity of the layout, reduce the number of options and menu items only to those the user wants to see, apply consistent icon usage to those that the user already identifies.
• Timeouts (Success Criterion 2.2.6)
o Value: This is a significant point of frustration for many of us who are users with disabilities.
• Interruptions (minimum) (Success Criterion 2.2.8)
o Value: This is also a point of frustration for many of us who are users with disabilities. Being able to postpone and suppress these will be a benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Plain Language (Success Criterion 3.1.7)
o Value: People with learning disabilities, especially reading related issues such as dyslexia, find complex technical language more difficult to understand.
• Manageable Blocks (Success Criterion 3.1.8)
o Value: From what we have learned in the education setting, this practice has been shown to have an important learning benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Extra Symbols (Success Criterion 3.1.9)
o Value: The use of symbols in addition to text which conveys critical information may be very useful to the population of people who have reading related learning disabilities.
• Familiar Design (minimum) (Success Criterion 3.2.7)
o Value: From what we have learned through research, this practice will ease use for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Minimize User Errors (Success Criterion 3.3.7)
o Value: Error notifications may be confusing for people with learning disabilities, so implementing technology which automatically corrects common formatting errors will be very useful.
• Undo (Success Criterion 3.3.8)
o Value: This capability is very important for individuals with LD or AD/HD, as a user may be confused or in a hurry and click on the wrong icon, or may misunderstand what is supposed to occur when a command is issued.
• Provide Support (Success Criterion 3.3.9)
o Value: This is a significant issue and resolving this will be a benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
Please, contact, Carolyn Phillips, Chair, LDA Technology Committee - carolyn.phillips@gatech.edu for additional information.
Learning Disabilities of America - Technology Committee Comments:
WCAG 2.1 For Learning Disabilities and Cognitive Disabilities
Thank you for providing this opportunity to comment. It is clear a significant amount of time, thought and energy has been invested in this document, the SCs and the process. It is refreshing to see a focus being placed on the accessibility needs of people with learning and cognitive impairments. The LDA – Technology Committee applauds these efforts. This Feedback is specifically from Steve Noble, Carolyn Phillips, Maria Kelley, Martha Rust, Liz Persaud and Sam Peters who are members of the LDA – Technology Committee.
Our primary focus was on addressing these questions:
How important are the proposed COGA Success Criteria for users?
Do the COGA Success Criteria fully address current user needs for digital learning and web content?
All of the new 10 proposed COGA Success Criteria are important elements for people with learning disabilities and should be kept. The extensive descriptions which are provided in the GitHub comments are excellent.
We strongly encourage you to keep all of the 10 proposed SC. We appreciate the Plain English Summary. Prioritizing the SC difficult without some type of rubric to score them. We did consider each of these and placed them in 2 Priority groups:
(1) First priority:
• Support Personalization (Success Criterion 1.3.4)
• Timeouts (Success Criterion 2.2.6)
• Familiar Design (minimum) (Success Criterion 3.2.7)
• Extra Symbols (Success Criterion 3.1.9)
• Minimize User Errors (Success Criterion 3.3.7)
• Provide Support (Success Criterion 3.3.9)
• Undo (Success Criterion 3.3.8)
• Plain Language (Success Criterion 3.1.7)
(2) Second priority:
• Manageable Blocks (Success Criterion 3.1.8)
• Interruptions (minimum) (Success Criterion 2.2.8)
With that stated, our preference would be for all of these to be adopted. Each one of them has a possible connection to the access needs of people with learning disabilities.
• Support Personalization (Success Criterion 1.3.4)
o Value: The ability to control aspects of a user interface such that the user can reduce the complexity of the layout, reduce the number of options and menu items only to those the user wants to see, apply consistent icon usage to those that the user already identifies.
• Timeouts (Success Criterion 2.2.6)
o Value: This is a significant point of frustration for many of us who are users with disabilities.
• Interruptions (minimum) (Success Criterion 2.2.8)
o Value: This is also a point of frustration for many of us who are users with disabilities. Being able to postpone and suppress these will be a benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Plain Language (Success Criterion 3.1.7)
o Value: People with learning disabilities, especially reading related issues such as dyslexia, find complex technical language more difficult to understand.
• Manageable Blocks (Success Criterion 3.1.8)
o Value: From what we have learned in the education setting, this practice has been shown to have an important learning benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Extra Symbols (Success Criterion 3.1.9)
o Value: The use of symbols in addition to text which conveys critical information may be very useful to the population of people who have reading related learning disabilities.
• Familiar Design (minimum) (Success Criterion 3.2.7)
o Value: From what we have learned through research, this practice will ease use for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
• Minimize User Errors (Success Criterion 3.3.7)
o Value: Error notifications may be confusing for people with learning disabilities, so implementing technology which automatically corrects common formatting errors will be very useful.
• Undo (Success Criterion 3.3.8)
o Value: This capability is very important for individuals with LD or AD/HD, as a user may be confused or in a hurry and click on the wrong icon, or may misunderstand what is supposed to occur when a command is issued.
• Provide Support (Success Criterion 3.3.9)
o Value: This is a significant issue and resolving this will be a benefit for people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders.
Please, contact, Carolyn Phillips, Chair, LDA Technology Committee - carolyn.phillips@gatech.edu for additional information.