Issue 1073 - Baseline support / conformance / fallbacks
: Baseline support / conformance / fallbacks

Description:   Opened: 2004-09-21 16:51 CDT
Robert Fentress posed a question about requirements for client-side script [1]
-
is the requirement from WCAG 1.0 to provide a text alternative for scripts [2]
still a requirement in WCAG 2.0? WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 6.3 says "Ensure that
pages
are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off
or not supported." This means it is not enough that a page uses scripts in an
accessible manner; it only conforms to the guidelines if it is equally
accessible when scripts are not supported.

The reason for this requirement in WCAG 1.0 was that assistive technologies
tend
to need time to catch up to mainstream technologies, and at the time WCAG 1.0
was written many technologies did not support scripts. Today, most though not
all assistive technologies do support scripts. In light of that, numerous
people
have voiced concern that if this continues to be a requirement in WCAG 2.0,
many
types of Web page will not be able to conform to the guidelines even though
they
are generally accessible. This issue goes beyond client-side scripting and
applies to all forms of non-text content. But the decision to drop the
requirement is not straightforward because of the importance of universal
technology support. It is further complicated by the fact that some non-text
technologies that provide accessibility features support those features only on
one platform or in one user agent.

There has been discussion of this topic by a group of people [3], proposals
from
Jason White [4], [5], and discussion of this issue in the 16 September 2004
teleconference [6]. Numerous other decisions rest on the direction taken on
this
issue.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0140.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#tech-scripts
[3] http://www.w3.org/2004/08/30-wai-wcag-irc
[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0521.html
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0518.html
[6] http://www.w3.org/2004/09/16-wai-wcag-irc
Working Group Notes:
Response to Reviewer:

Note: Use the commit button above to make minor changes to the working group notes or response to reviewer fields. For status changes or other edits to the issue, modify the fields below as needed.


Status: CLOSED ACCEPTED
: Guidelines (WCAG 2.0)
conforming alternate version
: unspecified
: Principle 4 none
: C2 blocker
: ---
Assigned To:
:
:
:
: script
:
: 869 1067 571 836 880 895 1059
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2004-09-21 16:51 CDT by
Modified: 2005-12-14 13:10 CST (History)


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Description Michael Cooper 2004-09-21 16:51:22 CDT
Robert Fentress posed a question about requirements for client-side script [1]
-
is the requirement from WCAG 1.0 to provide a text alternative for scripts [2]
still a requirement in WCAG 2.0? WCAG 1.0 Checkpoint 6.3 says "Ensure that
pages
are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off
or not supported." This means it is not enough that a page uses scripts in an
accessible manner; it only conforms to the guidelines if it is equally
accessible when scripts are not supported.

The reason for this requirement in WCAG 1.0 was that assistive technologies
tend
to need time to catch up to mainstream technologies, and at the time WCAG 1.0
was written many technologies did not support scripts. Today, most though not
all assistive technologies do support scripts. In light of that, numerous
people
have voiced concern that if this continues to be a requirement in WCAG 2.0,
many
types of Web page will not be able to conform to the guidelines even though
they
are generally accessible. This issue goes beyond client-side scripting and
applies to all forms of non-text content. But the decision to drop the
requirement is not straightforward because of the importance of universal
technology support. It is further complicated by the fact that some non-text
technologies that provide accessibility features support those features only on
one platform or in one user agent.

There has been discussion of this topic by a group of people [3], proposals
from
Jason White [4], [5], and discussion of this issue in the 16 September 2004
teleconference [6]. Numerous other decisions rest on the direction taken on
this
issue.

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0140.html
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/#tech-scripts
[3] http://www.w3.org/2004/08/30-wai-wcag-irc
[4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0521.html
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2004JulSep/0518.html
[6] http://www.w3.org/2004/09/16-wai-wcag-irc
Comment 1 wendy chisholm 2005-02-11 13:48:00 CST
*** Bug 195 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Ben Caldwell 2005-07-06 15:33:47 CDT
Issues 463, 571, 712, 842, 855, 932, 1073, 1334, 1335, 1336, and 1419 are
closed by the decision to separate the policy on baseline technologies
from WCAG, and the definition of baseline and conformance
[http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005AprJun/0502.html]

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-gl/2005AprJun/0985.html