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Improving Equity

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Problems with equity in WCAG2

Structural bias where some disabilities are more apt to be classified as A, others as AA or AAA. Auditory is most common example.
WCAG2 lacks a structure for classifying of A, AA, and AAA
Concern from Office of Civil Rights lawyer and accessibility advocate lawyer about including testability in classification of A, AA, and AAA

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Silver Research

Interviews on Conformance - Conclusions & Interview #5

Equity Issues with WCAG 2 -subgroup report from prototype work. This report was replicated, The subgroup was working in summer of 2019 but never wrote a final report.

WCAG2 SC by Disability - spreadsheet with source data

WCAG SC by User Need - spreadsheet by Alastair Campbell sorting SC into user needs. It does not have consensus and is only intended to be helpful, not authoritative.

WCAG Success Criteria Proposals Deferred to Silver - spreadsheet from David McDonald

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Improving equity between different disability groups

Developing a more comprehensive list of functional needs of disability groups

WCAG 3.0 currently references a list of 50+ disability categories

Example: WCAG 3.0 has a more granular inclusion of different cognitive disabilities

Developing guidelines starting with an evaluation of user needs

Instead of starting with the technical solutions
WCAG 3.0 identifies conflicting user needs

Example: high contrast is a barrier for some cognitive disabilities and visual impairments

Testing any scoring proposal with the impact on different disability groups

WCAG 3.0 has a group focused on testing and evaluating the different proposals

Jeanne: An ongoing challenge is to improve the equity between categories of different disability groups so we don’t have the unintended consequence of making it harder for some disability groups to get their needs addressed. This is a moving target and we are actively working on three different ways of leveling the playing field of different disability groups that may have been underserved.

First is expanding a list of functional needs which is more comprehensive, including a more granular inclusion of different types cognitive disabilities than the functional performance criteria generally used in the US and Europe. For example, Section 508 includes nine “Functional Performance Criteria”

WCAG 3.0 currently references a list of 50+ disability categories including categories that have not been addressed before and multiple disability combinations.

Instead of developing guidelines based on expert technical solutions, we start out development work on each guideline by evaluating the user needs. We also identify conflicting user needs, such as High contrast is needed for some visual disabilities, but high contrast is also a barrier for some cognitive disabilities and visual impairments

Third, we have a group of testers who evaluate all conformance proposals to test the impact on different disability groups.

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Proposals & Prototypes

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Silver prototype of classifications

A small group took on a project to classify the severity of WCAG2 success criteria by severity. It included common 2.0 success criteria, not all 2.0 success criteria

The experiment never made a formal report back, but the general result was a failure. Too many SC were always classified as most critical.

The conclusion was that guidelines should classify the severity by context, not by guideline.

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Proposed Conformance Approach

Point Scoring System
Option for adjectival ratings instead of only true false success criteria
Evaluating severity in context -- minor errors don’t fail, but critical errors do.

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Critical Errors

A critical error is an an accessibility problem that will stop a user from being able to complete a process
Critical errors include:

Items that will stop a user from being able to complete the task if it exists anywhere on the view (examples: flashing, keyboard trap, audio with no pause)
Errors that when located within a process means the process cannot be completed (example: a submit button that is not in the keyboard tab order)
Errors that when aggregated within a view or across a process cause failure (example: a large amount of confusing, ambiguous language)

There were two big problems with A, AA, and AAA. First and most important, is that it introduced a structural bias where certain disability types were more likely to have success criteria in the A, where others were more served by AAA. Since AAA was optional from a regulatory viewpoint, it meant that disability needs were not being addressed in a balanced way. Second, by permanently assigning a level to a guideline it overlooked the context of how the guideline was being used. In order to address the equity and the context in which the guideline is being used, we are trying out the idea of critical errors.

A critical error is an accessibility issue that will stop a user from being able to complete a process. Critical errors include:

Items that will stop a user from being able to complete the task if it exists anywhere on the view (examples: flashing, keyboard trap, audio with no pause);
Errors that when located within a process means the process cannot be completed (example: submit button not in tab order);
Errors that when aggregated within a view or across a process cause failure (example: a large amount of confusing, ambiguous language).

We expect to add more types of critical errors as we develop more guidelines. What it gives us is flexibility to prioritize types of errors while addressing the inadvertent structural bias of WCAG 2.

Again, I want to emphasize that even though I like idea, this may change and may not be a part of the final guidelines. We appreciate your feedback about these ideas.

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Overall Score by Functional Need

Scoring Example

FPWD - functional categories with a minimum score

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Example Final Score Sheet

Functional Categories	Score
Vision and Visual	1.3
Hearing and Auditory	4.0
Sensory Intersections	2.0
Mobility	2.0
Motor	2.0
Physical and Sensory Intersections	2.0
Speech	0.0
Attention	1.5
Language and Literacy	2.0
Learning	2.8
Memory	1.5
Executive	3.0
Mental Health
Cognitive and Sensory Intersections	1.8
Total	1.8
Critical Failures	2

This Final Score Sheet example shows the scores broken down by functional categories, the total score, and the total number of critical failures.
With a score of 1.8 and critical failures, this path would not achieve a Bronze rating.

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Meaningful Involvement

Creating a Meaningful Involvement Prototype for WCAG Silver - a Google Slide presentation to OCAD Inclusive Design Center about involving more people with disabilities in creating products.
Extending Silver to cover requirements for involving people with disabilities in the digital authoring process Proposal for meaningful involvement based on 11 September 2018 meeting.