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Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Lisa Snider
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 5:39AM
Subject: Wcag 2.1
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Hi Everyone,

With wcag 2.1 going to happen in a year or so, will governments have to change legislation that relies on wcag to update from wcag 2.0?

Cheers

Lisa

From: JP Jamous
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 5:42AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
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That will probably take another 10 years. *Smiles*

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 5:44AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

They won't *have* to, but they'll likely choose to do it at some point.

P

On 11/05/2017 13:39, Lisa Snider wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> With wcag 2.1 going to happen in a year or so, will governments have to change legislation that relies on wcag to update from wcag 2.0?
>
> Cheers
>
> Lisa
> > > > >

--
Patrick H. Lauke

www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
http://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | http://redux.deviantart.com
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

From: Lisa Snider
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 5:46AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

I hear ya! I was also wondering if there is new legislation being written, whether we should push for 2.1 now so by the time it is written it will include it?

Cheers

Lisa

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 11, 2017, at 8:42 AM, JP Jamous < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>
> That will probably take another 10 years. *Smiles*
>
>

From: JP Jamous
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 5:55AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

I don't know of any company or organization that is pushing for 2.1 since it is not official yet. It would be nice to get a head start on it, but what if they continue to refine it to the last set of weeks before the official release. That would only backfire on the organization's SDLC.

From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 6:17AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

My understanding is that when WCAG 2.1 becomes a technical recommendation, there isn't any requirement for laws to update to that version. That will be up to whatever political entities have the legislative power to change the laws.

Also, by the time WCAG 2.1 is close to becoming an official recommendation, it will not be undergoing any more changes. However, I expect for most political entities, they will want to wait until the specification is completed before they look into altering their laws to incorporate it. While WCAG 2.1 has a timeline, that is just the plan--and few plans survive contact with reality.

I am sure we have people on this list more fully involved with W3C and the process of creating WCAG 2.1 that can give better and more accurate information--but that is my understanding of things--well, my last comment about when laws might be updated is more an opinion about how legislative bodies are likely to react.

Thanks,
Tim

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 7:58AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

My understanding of WCAG 2.1 is that the new requirements )low vision,
cognitive, mobile) success criteria will be optional (I think you can
choose to comply with 1 or more of those), though I am not overly
clear on the details.

What I do know is that Section 508 was updated to references WCAG 2.0
on January 18, 2017 (9 years after the WCAG 2.0 release, back then we
did not even have an accessible touch screen device), and that the ADA
does not reference WCAG 2.0 specifically, which has caused headaches,
chaos and endless amount of corporate accessibility policy debate all
over the nation. In Europe we started campaigning for the EU
Accessibility Directive in 2011 and it came through in late 2016
referncing WCAG 2.0 with compliance coming into effective starting
2018.
So, seriously, even if 2.1 becomes an official standard in 2018 or
2019, there will be another 3 to 5 years (spoken as an unrealistic
optimist) before that standard is likely to be referenced by an
official legislation, more likely 6 to 8 years.
WE are all aware that we need more agile standards and legislation to
address technological progress, and it is one of the big talking
points of WCAG 3.0 (or WCAG AG, nicknamed silver).
Making corporate accessibility policies reference WCAG 2.0 is huge,
and the priority for now, I would say. Asking them to do more and
prefer for a new standard may be too much for the legal team.
You can review the 2.1 success cirteria with the designers, developers
and content folks and dress them up as usability improvements and
possible extras.



On 5/11/17, Tim Harshbarger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> My understanding is that when WCAG 2.1 becomes a technical recommendation,
> there isn't any requirement for laws to update to that version. That will be
> up to whatever political entities have the legislative power to change the
> laws.
>
> Also, by the time WCAG 2.1 is close to becoming an official recommendation,
> it will not be undergoing any more changes. However, I expect for most
> political entities, they will want to wait until the specification is
> completed before they look into altering their laws to incorporate it. While
> WCAG 2.1 has a timeline, that is just the plan--and few plans survive
> contact with reality.
>
> I am sure we have people on this list more fully involved with W3C and the
> process of creating WCAG 2.1 that can give better and more accurate
> information--but that is my understanding of things--well, my last comment
> about when laws might be updated is more an opinion about how legislative
> bodies are likely to react.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
>

From: John Foliot
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 8:32AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi All,

Birkir has done an excellent job summarizing the crux of the situation.

Laws are regional requirements, based upon geography and sovereignty,
where-as the W3C is a global consortium that has members from, quite
literally, countries all over the globe. Some territories explicitly
reference "WCAG 2.0", while other countries will possibly reference "the
most current requirements" (essentially the requirement in the UK today).
Other countries and territories will adapt WCAG but re-write their
legislation - Japan developed *JIS X 8341-3* using both the ISO/IEC Guide
71 and the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines, and in Canada, both the Quebec
and Ontario provincial governments have created legislation that uses WCAG,
but with specific exceptions. So there is not a homogeneous legal landscape
we work in today.

Also consider that while a number of proposed new Success Criteria are
coming forward, the Working Group at the W3C is working with a hard and
tight deadline to publish WCAG 2.1 (July 2018), and at this time it appears
that some of the current proposed new SC may not make the 2.1 "Finnish
line".

The plan there is to continue working on those SC that didn't make the
first deadline, and potentially offer a WCAG 2.2 roughly a year or 2 after
WCAG 2.1 ships. And if 2.2 still doesn't have everything we are working on
"completed", we have not ruled out a potential 2.3, 2.4, etc. at roughly
18-month/2-year cycles, which to many of us is the bigger key: regular and
predictable Recommendations that address the issues from a technology
perspective first.

Meanwhile, as Birkir noted, we are also taking a different tack, and
concurrent with the 'updating' of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines,
the Working Group is *also* working on the next-generation guidelines
("Project Silver"). These guidelines will also look to incorporate some of
the existing requirements in UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines) and
ATAG (Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines) to create a more holistic
"Accessibility Guidelines" going forward.

The actual format and structure of Silver is still an open question, and
while we will need to preserve the intent, and ensure a thorough mapping
from one to the other, we have specifically not ruled out the notion that
Project Silver may emerge in a different format than WCAG. There is also a
strong push to see the Project Silver work advance in a timely manner, and
so transitioning from a 2.x to the next-gen spec is also foreseen as
happening in a 2 to 5 year time-frame, but the crystal ball is a tad cloudy
here.


Returning to legislative requirements then, it is my personal belief that
most territories that reference a specific WCAG release will quite possibly
wait for the release of "Silver" before undertaking a legislative update,
while regions like the UK will likely be using 2.1 (2.x) sooner than that.

In all scenarios however, as advocates and consultants, we can urge our
clients/employers to start taking up WCAG 2.1 SC upon publication, because
while they won't be legally mandated right away, the "writing is on the
wall" that they will be eventually. The nice thing here is that the
guidance will be clear and "normative", but the timeline for implementation
will be easier to take-up: the trick is to socialize the new SC while they
still have the legal value of "Best Practice" with lesser pressure to
deliver, and more time to incorporate into the final web-offering of the
client/company.

HTH

JF

On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> My understanding of WCAG 2.1 is that the new requirements )low vision,
> cognitive, mobile) success criteria will be optional (I think you can
> choose to comply with 1 or more of those), though I am not overly
> clear on the details.
>
> What I do know is that Section 508 was updated to references WCAG 2.0
> on January 18, 2017 (9 years after the WCAG 2.0 release, back then we
> did not even have an accessible touch screen device), and that the ADA
> does not reference WCAG 2.0 specifically, which has caused headaches,
> chaos and endless amount of corporate accessibility policy debate all
> over the nation. In Europe we started campaigning for the EU
> Accessibility Directive in 2011 and it came through in late 2016
> referncing WCAG 2.0 with compliance coming into effective starting
> 2018.
> So, seriously, even if 2.1 becomes an official standard in 2018 or
> 2019, there will be another 3 to 5 years (spoken as an unrealistic
> optimist) before that standard is likely to be referenced by an
> official legislation, more likely 6 to 8 years.
> WE are all aware that we need more agile standards and legislation to
> address technological progress, and it is one of the big talking
> points of WCAG 3.0 (or WCAG AG, nicknamed silver).
> Making corporate accessibility policies reference WCAG 2.0 is huge,
> and the priority for now, I would say. Asking them to do more and
> prefer for a new standard may be too much for the legal team.
> You can review the 2.1 success cirteria with the designers, developers
> and content folks and dress them up as usability improvements and
> possible extras.
>
>
>
> On 5/11/17, Tim Harshbarger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > My understanding is that when WCAG 2.1 becomes a technical
> recommendation,
> > there isn't any requirement for laws to update to that version. That
> will be
> > up to whatever political entities have the legislative power to change
> the
> > laws.
> >
> > Also, by the time WCAG 2.1 is close to becoming an official
> recommendation,
> > it will not be undergoing any more changes. However, I expect for most
> > political entities, they will want to wait until the specification is
> > completed before they look into altering their laws to incorporate it.
> While
> > WCAG 2.1 has a timeline, that is just the plan--and few plans survive
> > contact with reality.
> >
> > I am sure we have people on this list more fully involved with W3C and
> the
> > process of creating WCAG 2.1 that can give better and more accurate
> > information--but that is my understanding of things--well, my last
> comment
> > about when laws might be updated is more an opinion about how legislative
> > bodies are likely to react.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Tim
> >
> >

From: John Foliot
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 8:32AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

Hi All,

Birkir has done an excellent job summarizing the crux of the situation.

Laws are regional requirements, based upon geography and sovereignty,
where-as the W3C is a global consortium that has members from, quite
literally, countries all over the globe. Some territories explicitly
reference "WCAG 2.0", while other countries will possibly reference "the
most current requirements" (essentially the requirement in the UK today).
Other countries and territories will adapt WCAG but re-write their
legislation - Japan developed *JIS X 8341-3* using both the ISO/IEC Guide
71 and the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines, and in Canada, both the Quebec
and Ontario provincial governments have created legislation that uses WCAG,
but with specific exceptions. So there is not a homogeneous legal landscape
we work in today.

Also consider that while a number of proposed new Success Criteria are
coming forward, the Working Group at the W3C is working with a hard and
tight deadline to publish WCAG 2.1 (July 2018), and at this time it appears
that some of the current proposed new SC may not make the 2.1 "Finnish
line".

The plan there is to continue working on those SC that didn't make the
first deadline, and potentially offer a WCAG 2.2 roughly a year or 2 after
WCAG 2.1 ships. And if 2.2 still doesn't have everything we are working on
"completed", we have not ruled out a potential 2.3, 2.4, etc. at roughly
18-month/2-year cycles, which to many of us is the bigger key: regular and
predictable Recommendations that address the issues from a technology
perspective first.

Meanwhile, as Birkir noted, we are also taking a different tack, and
concurrent with the 'updating' of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines,
the Working Group is *also* working on the next-generation guidelines
("Project Silver"). These guidelines will also look to incorporate some of
the existing requirements in UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines) and
ATAG (Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines) to create a more holistic
"Accessibility Guidelines" going forward.

The actual format and structure of Silver is still an open question, and
while we will need to preserve the intent, and ensure a thorough mapping
from one to the other, we have specifically not ruled out the notion that
Project Silver may emerge in a different format than WCAG. There is also a
strong push to see the Project Silver work advance in a timely manner, and
so transitioning from a 2.x to the next-gen spec is also foreseen as
happening in a 2 to 5 year time-frame, but the crystal ball is a tad cloudy
here.


Returning to legislative requirements then, it is my personal belief that
most territories that reference a specific WCAG release will quite possibly
wait for the release of "Silver" before undertaking a legislative update,
while regions like the UK will likely be using 2.1 (2.x) sooner than that.

In all scenarios however, as advocates and consultants, we can urge our
clients/employers to start taking up WCAG 2.1 SC upon publication, because
while they won't be legally mandated right away, the "writing is on the
wall" that they will be eventually. The nice thing here is that the
guidance will be clear and "normative", but the timeline for implementation
will be easier to take-up: the trick is to socialize the new SC while they
still have the legal value of "Best Practice" with lesser pressure to
deliver, and more time to incorporate into the final web-offering of the
client/company.

HTH

JF

On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 8:58 AM, Birkir R. Gunnarsson <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:

> My understanding of WCAG 2.1 is that the new requirements )low vision,
> cognitive, mobile) success criteria will be optional (I think you can
> choose to comply with 1 or more of those), though I am not overly
> clear on the details.
>
> What I do know is that Section 508 was updated to references WCAG 2.0
> on January 18, 2017 (9 years after the WCAG 2.0 release, back then we
> did not even have an accessible touch screen device), and that the ADA
> does not reference WCAG 2.0 specifically, which has caused headaches,
> chaos and endless amount of corporate accessibility policy debate all
> over the nation. In Europe we started campaigning for the EU
> Accessibility Directive in 2011 and it came through in late 2016
> referncing WCAG 2.0 with compliance coming into effective starting
> 2018.
> So, seriously, even if 2.1 becomes an official standard in 2018 or
> 2019, there will be another 3 to 5 years (spoken as an unrealistic
> optimist) before that standard is likely to be referenced by an
> official legislation, more likely 6 to 8 years.
> WE are all aware that we need more agile standards and legislation to
> address technological progress, and it is one of the big talking
> points of WCAG 3.0 (or WCAG AG, nicknamed silver).
> Making corporate accessibility policies reference WCAG 2.0 is huge,
> and the priority for now, I would say. Asking them to do more and
> prefer for a new standard may be too much for the legal team.
> You can review the 2.1 success cirteria with the designers, developers
> and content folks and dress them up as usability improvements and
> possible extras.
>
>
>
> On 5/11/17, Tim Harshbarger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> > My understanding is that when WCAG 2.1 becomes a technical
> recommendation,
> > there isn't any requirement for laws to update to that version. That
> will be
> > up to whatever political entities have the legislative power to change
> the
> > laws.
> >
> > Also, by the time WCAG 2.1 is close to becoming an official
> recommendation,
> > it will not be undergoing any more changes. However, I expect for most
> > political entities, they will want to wait until the specification is
> > completed before they look into altering their laws to incorporate it.
> While
> > WCAG 2.1 has a timeline, that is just the plan--and few plans survive
> > contact with reality.
> >
> > I am sure we have people on this list more fully involved with W3C and
> the
> > process of creating WCAG 2.1 that can give better and more accurate
> > information--but that is my understanding of things--well, my last
> comment
> > about when laws might be updated is more an opinion about how legislative
> > bodies are likely to react.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Tim
> >
> >

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 8:36AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | Next message →

> My understanding of WCAG 2.1 is that the new requirements )low vision, cognitive, mobile) success criteria will be optional (I think you can choose to comply with 1 or more of those), though I am not overly clear on the details.

That is not correct. Originally mobile, cognitive, low vision were seen as extensions. However, that approach did not seem to be equitable with the community. Now the work from the task forces is going to be rolled in a WCAG 2.1 without extensions. In order to meet 2.1 at a particular level you will need to conform to all of the criteria at that level. What criteria are in or out is still fluid. Mobile technology is not really a specific area anymore as the reality is really that some people have smaller screens or touch devices but others have touch screens on larger devices. Thus criteria will focus on the capabilities of the content.

Jonathan

Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
703.637.8957 (Office)
Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog
Download our CSUN Presentations Here!

The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.

From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Thu, May 11 2017 8:41AM
Subject: Re: Wcag 2.1
← Previous message | No next message

Thanks John and Jon for the updates and corrections.
Since I moved over from consulting to running a corporate program I
don´t always follow all the latest developments as much as I should.
I have carefully studied all the WCAG 2.1 success criteria. I am
excited by some, baffled by others, but I was not sure what the
compliance requirements were, I hadn't gotten there yet.

I love having acces to guys like Jon and John, and to this list, for
keeping me up-to-date.



On 5/11/17, Jonathan Avila < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>> My understanding of WCAG 2.1 is that the new requirements )low vision,
>> cognitive, mobile) success criteria will be optional (I think you can
>> choose to comply with 1 or more of those), though I am not overly clear on
>> the details.
>
> That is not correct. Originally mobile, cognitive, low vision were seen as
> extensions. However, that approach did not seem to be equitable with the
> community. Now the work from the task forces is going to be rolled in a
> WCAG 2.1 without extensions. In order to meet 2.1 at a particular level you
> will need to conform to all of the criteria at that level. What criteria
> are in or out is still fluid. Mobile technology is not really a specific
> area anymore as the reality is really that some people have smaller screens
> or touch devices but others have touch screens on larger devices. Thus
> criteria will focus on the capabilities of the content.
>
> Jonathan
>
> Jonathan Avila
> Chief Accessibility Officer
> SSB BART Group
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> 703.637.8957 (Office)
> Visit us online: Website | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog
> Download our CSUN Presentations Here!
>
> The information contained in this transmission may be attorney privileged
> and/or confidential information intended for the use of the individual or
> entity named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended
> recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution
> or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.
>
>
>