Advice on AA conformation

[Andy Laws]

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

 

 

Many Regards

 

Andrew

--
Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS
Web-Sites:
www.opelnet.co.uk
www.cubiks.com
www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk
e-mail: adlaws@...
Telephone:: [phone]

[Karl Groves-4]

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Andrew,

 

What you’re asking is really more of a legal question than an accessibility one, but I’d like to answer anyway, based on my experience with Section 508 in the US.   The UK and US legal system are similar enough that my response may at least help frame some strategy moving forward, but keep in mind I’m neither a lawyer in the US or UK.

 

The situation you’ve presented, where you have 2 different sets of results, is a common problem with accessibility auditing/ consulting work.  Often, an auditor will pull out a copy of their desired industry standard, go down the list, and for each provision (or guideline, whichever term you prefer) ask themselves “Do we meet this?”, jot down some notes and move on to the next provision.   Doing audits in this manner is inefficient, often inaccurate, and most definitely neither repeatable or actionable.   Two different people auditing the same system in this manner will very often get different results.  Further, the same person, doing a regression audit will often get different results as well.  What is needed, therefore, is a more well defined and mature auditing methodology.  The benefits to such an approach goes beyond efficiency and quality of the audits produced and has huge legal implications, as I’ll discuss later.

 

A mature auditing methodology should be based upon the use of Best Practices.   For each provision of each industry standard you want to comply with, you should go through and detail the exact conformance criteria necessary for meeting that individual provision.    For each Best Practice in your list, you should provide detailed test instructions defining exactly how it is determined whether you have or have not met that Best Practice’s criteria.   What this does, from a testing perspective, is gives you a clear and concrete set of criteria against which all of your systems will be tested now and in the future.  In doing so, you’re able to “zero out” any difference between one person’s understanding of conformance vs. their peers’, and you’ve also defined your acceptance criteria for future regression audits.  Lastly, you’ve now given your developers/ vendors the criteria against which their work will be measured in the future.  Over time, the net effect is not only much greater accuracy and repeatability of results, a much higher degree of accessibility of your systems.

 

 

As I mentioned, I’m not a lawyer, but this is what my experience tells me on the legal front:

From a legal standpoint you’re also going to be putting yourself into a position of defensibility, should complaints arise.  By creating a detailed set of conformance criteria (the Best Practices), you’ve documented your company’s commitment to compliance and your approach toward measuring it.  By evaluating against that well-defined set of conformance criteria, you’ve documented the fact that you have – or are putting into place – a mature program of ensuring compliance.  By exposing the developers to the Best Practices, you’re putting into motion actual effort toward becoming more compliant.  All of this put together establishes defensibility in the courts.    Nothing will ever stop a complainant from coming along and saying  “Andrew Laws website is inaccessible”, but if your company puts into place a mature, well-documented program for compliance, you will definitely become both more accessible (the goal, of course) and reduce your exposure to risk.

 

Hope that helps, and best of luck to you.

 

 

 

Karl Groves
Director of Strategic Planning and Product Development

SSB BART Group
karl.groves@...
703.637.8961 (o)
443.889.8763 (c)
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com

Accessibility-On-Demand

 

From: w3c-wai-ig-request@... [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@...] On Behalf Of Andy Laws
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 11:44 AM
To: WAI Interest Group list
Subject: Advice on AA conformation

 

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

 

 

Many Regards

 

Andrew

--
Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS
Web-Sites:
www.opelnet.co.uk
www.cubiks.com
www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk
e-mail: adlaws@...
Telephone:: [phone]

[Roger Hudson-2]

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Hi Andrew

 

Leaving aside the question of legality; was the application audited with reference to WCAG 1.0 or WCAG 2.0?

 

As I am sure you know, parts of WCAG 1.0 are highly subjective. With WCAG 2.0 however, it seems to me that using the normative Success Criteria and informative Techniques you are much more likely to produce repeatable results. Of course, there is always like to be some subjective element, for example is the content of this text alternative really an equivalent alternative or are they just some words that fill the space but aren’t really an equivalent.

 

My suggestion would be to use WCAG 2.0 and ask the auditors to provide a Compliance Statement, which outlines the technologies used and relied upon and those that are used and not replied upon, as suggested in the WCAG 2.0 documentation. However, this still leaves open the question of which technologies are you allowed to consider accessibility supported within your jurisdiction.

 

Roger

 

 

---

From: w3c-wai-ig-request@... [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@...] On Behalf Of Andy Laws
Sent: Saturday, 7 November 2009 3:44 AM
To: WAI Interest Group list
Subject: Advice on AA conformation

 

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

 

 

Many Regards

 

Andrew

--
Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS
Web-Sites:
www.opelnet.co.uk
www.cubiks.com
www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk
e-mail: adlaws@...
Telephone:: [phone]

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Karl Groves wrote:
>
> What you’re asking is really more of a legal question than an
> accessibility one, but I’d like to answer anyway, based on my experience

I agree.  It is a question for the legislators or lawyers. They have
chosen the rules which businesses have to comply with, even if the rules
were written by someone else.

> Practices.   For each provision of each industry standard you want to
> comply with, you should go through and detail the exact conformance
> criteria necessary for meeting that individual provision.    For each

Whilst this is probably good advice for avoiding being prosecuted or
sued.  However, it is bad for accessibility as it often encourages an
attitude of minimal compliance; it stops one from using the best
techniques for the specific audience of the web site; and it prevents
the creativity which may eventually lead to a better best current practice.

> Best Practice in your list, you should provide detailed test
> instructions defining exactly how it is determined whether you have or

Given that most businesses don't value accessibility, it probably
improves accessibility if WAI can provide one set of rules that is so
objectively testable that legislators can use it to frame laws for which
it is possible to objectively prove compliance, and for which there is
little difference between minimal compliance and objectively provable
compliance.  However, in my view, that should be the A level, not AA or
AAA.  AA and AAA should require a reasonable person test and much more
stress on objectives than on exact methods.

--
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

[Gregg Vanderheiden]

On Nov 6, 2009, at 10:44 AM, Andy Laws wrote:

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

This is no different than in any other field.   Except where you can reduce everything to a mechanical test with a numeric result you will get these differences.   Even there you get different measures from different evaluations sometimes if you live near the edge.   Even with HTML -- you have "valid" html (things that can be checked with a mechanical validator) and "conforming HTML" which means you follow the spec.  Not all validators will give you the exact same results --- and if you wanted to check for conformance to the standard -- you can get different interpretations from different evaluators. 

The guidelines shouldn’t be thought of as a line that you want to just barely get across.   as long as your are right on top of the line - you will get normal variation on whether you are on it or over it one side or the other.

Instead - use it as in indication of where you should be above -- and then don't get near it.   That is the MINIMUM that you must do.   Like the edge of a road.  You don't want to drive on the edge of the road.    If you are above it by any reasonable amount you won't have a problem.   Also,  look at the REASON that the guideline is in place.     If you fulfil the reason - then you will have met the criteria.  Remember the techniques are not required. Only the  success criteria. 

Finally,  I can find someone who will pass or fail any site if I want to.  That doesn’t mean the ruler is bad.  

Find a good evaluator and go with them or someone they recommend.   Then don't press them to figure out how to pass you.  Use them to figure out where the edge of the road is - and how to say away from it. 

Gregg

-----------------------

Gregg Vanderheiden Ph.D.

Director Trace R&D Center

Professor Industrial & Systems Engineering

and Biomedical Engineering

University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

On Nov 6, 2009, at 10:44 AM, Andy Laws wrote:

Dear All

 

 

We have come across a scenario lately, where 2 different accessibility audits have produced different results, As a company we are legally obliged to provide AA compliant web aplications, however this is very subjective, how as a company do we protect ourselves legally ie if we have met all checkpoint guide lines, is this sufficient

 

 

Many Regards

 

Andrew

--
Andrew Laws Bsc(Hons) MBCS, FBCS
Web-Sites:
www.opelnet.co.uk
www.cubiks.com
www.holidayhypermarket.co.uk
e-mail: adlaws@...
Telephone:: [phone]

[Karl Groves-4]

>
> > Practices.   For each provision of each industry standard you want to
> > comply with, you should go through and detail the exact conformance
> > criteria necessary for meeting that individual provision.    For each
>
> Whilst this is probably good advice for avoiding being prosecuted or
> sued.  However, it is bad for accessibility as it often encourages an
> attitude of minimal compliance; it stops one from using the best
> techniques for the specific audience of the web site; and it prevents
> the creativity which may eventually lead to a better best current
> practice.

I strongly disagree with the above statement.  What we've found at SSB
BART Group is that our customers' systems become more accessible over a
relatively short period of time.

For example, we have one client that has engaged us to test e-learning
content before putting that content into their LMS.  At the beginning of
the contract, this content was, shall we say, less than ideal. Over a
relatively short period of time what we've seen is that their content is
vastly improved the first time we see it.   And believe me, this is not
because they've reached some sort of "minimum compliance", because we take
a very conservative approach to compliance.

Karl