WCAG 2.0 Comment Submission

Name: Rick Hill 
Email: <rrhill@ucdavis.edu>
Affiliation: 
Document: W2
Item Number: (none selected)
Part of Item: 
Comment Type: GE
Comment (Including rationale for any proposed change):
I for one do not have the time to read all of the WCAG 2 documents in 
the 30-day review time-frame that has been provided. Having read Joe 
Clark\'s comments at http://www.alistapart.com/articles/ 
tohellwithwcag2 and http://joeclark.org/access/webaccess/WCAG/ as 
well as postings at http://technorati.com/tag/WCAG2. If only 10% of 
the issues that are identified on these sites are true, then WCAG 2 
is NOT ready for prime time. If it is true that web pages that meet 
WCAG 2 need not be valid HTML/XHTML then that is utterly contrary to 
the concept of web standards and is a HUGE step in the wrong 
direction. I would hope that the WCAG 2 standards build on and 
enhance the standards of WCAG 1 that many of us have worked hard to 
promote in our work places. Other comments:
1. The provision to define a technology as a "baseline," is not 
useful unless there is either some way to make sure that the 
technology is inherently accessible and/or that there are provisions 
to provide alternate technologies to provide accessible versions of 
the content where the baseline technology fails.
2. Being able to define entire directories of your site as off-limits 
to accessibility should only be allowed when the content cannot be 
made accessible.
3. The compliance \"levels\" do not seem to have become simpler. 
Perhaps more cryptic. And I would like to see a move toward 
enforcible standrads rather than merely guidelines (as in what was 
attempted with the language of 508).
4. You can’t use offscreen positioning to add labels (e.g., to forms) 
that only some people, like users of assistive technology, can 
perceive. Everybody has to see them.
5. Source order must match presentation order even at the lowest 
level ... why?
6. It would seem that WCAG 2 proposes maintaining separate accessible 
and inaccessible versions of the same pages.
Again, I wish I had the time to drop my day-to-day tasks, stop 
pushing for web standard design in our environment (including 
accessible design) and devote my time to being able to read an 
comment on the final WCAG 2 draft. However, the comments from folks 
in the know and in the filed have not been encouraging. So, I 
decided to drop a line and express my concerns and fears. SInce it 
took years for the committee to reach this point, it would seem a 
slightly longer review period to allow comment is in order. And one 
would hope, if the public (those folks working to promote accessible 
design) have real concerns about the standard, then the committee 
needs to regroup and address those concerns, not publish a set of 
guidelines that will not be accepted or used in practice ...
Proposed Change:

Received on Tuesday, 6 June 2006 06:31:29 UTC

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