[Irl-dean] AAA Claim?

[Barry McMullin]

On Mon, 19 Feb 2007, brendan spillane wrote:
[...]
> However there are old monthly newsletters typically 8 to 12 pages in
> length going back several years which both of us believe the cost of
> converting to xhtml to be far too much on a cost v benefit ratio. They
> would still like to have these on the website as they are a benefit to
> the public instead of hiding them away on an intranet so they can
> fully comply with the guidelines without breaking the bank.
>
> What I would like to ask the list is does anyone feel it is acceptable
> to have and claim AAA accessibility for the rest of the website but to
> have an archive page which is only AA accessible containing these
> documents?

OK, back to Brendan's original question.  This was about scoping
WCAG conformance claims, and is actually independent of exactly
what WCAG level(s) are being claimed.

WCAG 1.0 itself is fairly clear on how to make conformance
claims.  It allows claims to be "embedded" within individual
resources, and/or to have a separate resource (normally a HTML
page itself) which expresses a claim covering a collection of
resources.  The latter might be a complete "site" or some
"defined portion" of a site.  WCAG 1.0 does not prescribe any
particular *way* to identify either a complete "site" or a
"defined portion" of a site, but it should presumably be
reasonably clear and precise (i.e., it should be clear how to
decide whether any particular resources is within the scope of
the claim or not).

So, in particular, you might have a site wide "conformance claim
page" which says something like:

  Accessibility Conformance Claim

  All resources on this website (i.e., within the domain
  "mygoodstuff.org") *except* those in the "legacy" section
  (having URLs of the form "http://mygoodstuff.org/legacy/*")
  conform to level Double-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility
  Guidelines 1.0.

  All resources in the "legacy" section (having URLs of the form
  "http://mygoodstuff.org/legacy/*") conform to level Single-A of
  the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

You might also consider a claim phrased something like this:

  All resources on this website (i.e., within the domain
  "mygoodstuff.org") *except* some resources provided exclusively
  in PDF formats conform to level Double-A of the W3C Web Content
  Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.

  All resources provided exclusively in PDF format conform to
  level Single-A of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
  1.0.

This is allowed by WCAG 1.0; however, for what it is worth, the
current WCAG 2.0 draft would not allow it: "Scoping cannot
exclude a particular type of content (for example, images or
scripts) since it would allow exclusion of individual success
criteria." So it might be better, from the point of view of
possible future migration to 2.0, to avoid expressing scope in
that sort of way. (Mind you, I'm personally sceptical whether
that particular restriction in the 2.0 draft is practical
for other reasons...)

Alternatively, you might not have an overall "conformance claim"
page, but just rely on embedding an individual conformance claim
(at the appropriate level) in each resource. (By default, of
course, resources not having any embedded claim would then be
assumed not to be subject of any conformance claim at all.) One
thing to be careful of is that many sites embed a conformance
claim as part of a sitewide "template"; which is fine, as long as
you are satisfied that every resource that will be inserted into
that template does, indeed, conform, as claimed.

Mind you, even when individual resources have their own
conformance claims in this way, I would personally recommend, as
best practice (but not actually required by WCAG) that you do
still provide an overall, site wide, conformance statement,
giving at least a general idea of what the applicable conformance
level(s) are, and any scope limitations.

Finally, there is the rather obscure complication that some WCAG
1.0 checkpoints are not actually applicable at the individual
resource level. The most obvious example is 13.4: "Use navigation
mechanisms in a consistent manner [Priority 2]." So, in theory at
least, one might have a site in which each individual resource
can validly claim conformance to Double-A, but the site "as a
whole" cannot...

The bottom line to all of this is that WCAG, in and of itself, is
a completely *voluntary* code.  From that point of view, it is
entirely up to a site operator how much or how little of a site's
resources should be made conform to WCAG, and at what levels.
All WCAG requires is that the site operator should be honest and
accurate in those claims; and, in particular, if making any kind
of "collective" claim, covering a number of resources (a whole
"site" or otherwise), to be precise and explicit about the scope
of the resources that are included in the claim.

Of course, from the point of view of users with disability, every
single resource that does not conform to WCAG, or that conforms
at a lower level, is another resource that potentially presents
avoidable barriers to access. So, yes, it is nice for the
conformance claims to be scoped accurately; but it is, of course,
much nicer not to have to bother (because there are no exceptions
to be articulated).

Similarly, if there is some *requirement* on a site provider to
conform to WCAG at some particular level (arguably, that might
now be the case for many public sector organisations in Ireland,
arising from the 2005 Disability Act, and the associated NDA Code
of Practice) then the question of whether "exceptions" of
"exclusions" is allowed is not one for WCAG, but one for the
relevant legislation etc.

Hope that helps.

Best - Barry.