Re: Accessibility of protocols

On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Wendy A Chisholm wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> The WCAG WG has an open issue about protocols [1].  In your opinion, do you
> think WCAG 2.0 needs to say anything about transport protocols (e.g., http,
> soap)?

Where they are potentially relevant, yes. Remember that the
technology-specifics reside outside the guidelines themselves, so that any
mention in the guidelines would only be brief and would not refer to any
specific protocols.

Consider a scenario in which WCAG 2.0 becomes a Recommendation and, at
some point thereafter, it becomes desirable to write techniques for using
a protocol (e.g., a content negotiation protocol); if protocols aren't
mentioned in the relevant context in WCAG then arguably there is no
normative requirement on which to rest the techniques; therefore the
techniques don't match the guidelines and one is faced with the
undesirable prospect of having to amend a normative document, and moreover
in ways that were entirely foreseeable.

My conclusion: leave the possibility open in suitable contexts but don't
spend much time on it. I would be particularly interested in content
negotiation, which can operate at the protocol level.