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Re: can "web page" and "markup language" success criteria be applied to native apps?

for

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Nov 11, 2019 3:05PM

Strictly, WCAG 2.1 is only directly applicable to web content
technologies https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#dfn-technologies

Native applications are not based on web technologies (leaving aside
hybrid applications, where the native app contains a built-in user agent
runtime environment and the actual content/functionality uses web
technologies.

So, right from the get-go, I'd say WCAG 2.1 cannot be *directly* applied
to native apps. However, the underlying principles of SCs can still be
applied. For WCAG 2.0 there's the WCAG 2ICT document
https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/non-web-ict/ ... for
2.1 something similar is still being worked on.

In this light, I'd ignore the "web page" wording and treat that as,
essentially, your "view" in the native application.

More problematic are the SCs that are explicitly scoped to "markup
language" use. (1.3.6 Identify Purpose, 1.4.12 Text Spacing, 4.1.1
Parsing, 4.1.3 Status Messages). Even with the more liberal
reinterpretation (WCAG2ICT) to make things apply to non-web content,
some of those SCs are simply not practical/applicable.

Clearly, 4.1.1 is inapplicable, as native apps don't rely on runtime
parsing of markup which can cause problems...they're already precompiled
and packaged, and there's nothing that can be validated.

1.4.12 Text Spacing, while good in principle, falls down in the case of
native apps because native OSs rarely/never give users high-level
control over/override capabilities for text rendering, the same way
browsers do.

And the granularity required to define purpose for everything for 1.3.6
is not always present in native OSs either (and even 1.3.5, which does
not explicitly mention markup language - strangely enough - is also
already quite problematic at the moment - see
https://github.com/w3c/wcag/issues/720)

For 4.1.3, despite the use of "markup language", I'd actually say that
the *spirit* of the SC can be applied to native apps.

Long story short: as applying WCAG 2.1 to non-web content is already a
reinterpretation of what the SCs are originally intended for, you may as
well creatively reinterpret/ignore bits that say "web page" and "markup
language" ... but also still take a pragmatic view that some of these
SCs, even with this reinterpretation, are simply not realistic to
achieve for native app developers, and treat them as not applicable.

Also, see 508 Refresh, its use of WCAG 2.x, and the exception there:

"EXCEPTION: Non-Web documents shall not be required to conform to the
following four WCAG 2.0 Success Criteria: 2.4.1 Bypass Blocks, 2.4.5
Multiple Ways, 3.2.3 Consistent Navigation, and 3.2.4 Consistent
Identification."

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
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twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke