Issue 1073 – Baseline support / conformance / fallbacks

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

Status:

CLOSED ACCEPTED

Product:

Guidelines (WCAG 2.0)

Component:

conforming alternate version

Version:

unspecified

Section:

Principle 4 none

Category:

C2 blocker

Target Milestone:

---

Assigned To:

nobody

QA Contact:

Ben Caldwell

URL:

Sort Terms:

Keywords:

script

Depends on:

Blocks:

869 1067 571 836 880 895 1059

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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

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

Issue 1073 - Baseline support / conformance / fallbacks

Summary: Baseline support / conformance / fallbacks