Manageable blocks - Githubissues

lseeman commented 7 years ago

Current versions of SC and Definitions

SC Shortname: Manageable blocks

                <h2>SC Text</h2>
                <p>Statements which instruct a user to make a choice or take an action:
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li>have only one instruction per sentence, except when two things have to be done simultaneously;</li>
                    <li>use sentences of no more than 15 words;</li>
                    <li>should have no more than one relative pronoun per sentence.</li>
                </ul>
                <h2>
                    <a id="user-content-suggestion-for-

priority-level-aaaaaa" href="https://github.com/w3c/wcag21/wiki/Proposals-for-new- Success-Criteria#suggestion-for-priority-level-aaaaaa">Suggestion for Priority: Level (AA)

Related Glossary additions or changes

                <dl>
                    <dt>
                        Relative pronoun
                    </dt>
                    <dd>any of the words "who", "whom", "that", "which", "whose", "where", "when" and "why"

What Principle and Guideline the SC falls within.

                <p>Guideline 3.1
                </p>
                <h2><a href="https://github.com/w3c/wcag21/wiki/Proposals-for-new-

Success-Criteria#benefits">Benefits

Chunking content, whether it is visual or auditory, supports those with working memory deficits, such as those with learning disabilities and brain injury. The breaking down of content into small sections, whether it is developed as audio or video output; mathematical symbols; or a paragraph of text; improves levels of comprehension.

                <p>
                    References for evidence of the benefits
                    include:
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li>Evmenova, Anna S., and Michael M.
                        Behrmann. "Research-Based Strategies for Teaching Content to
                        Students with Intellectual Disabilities: Adapted Videos." Education and
                        Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities 46.3 (2011): 315-25.
                        Web. 
                    </li>
                    <li>Hock, M. and Mellard, D. (2005),
                        Reading Comprehension Strategies for Adult Literacy Outcomes.
                        Journal of Adolescent &amp; Adult Literacy, 49: 192-200. 
                    </li>
                    <li>Zhang, D., Ding, Y., Stegall, J. and Mo,
                        L. (2012), The Effect of Visual-Chunking-Representation
                        Accommodation on Geometry Testing for Students with Math
                        Disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research &amp; Practice, 27: 167-
                        177. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2012.00364.x .
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <p>Splitting information into manageable blocks assists:
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li>the increasing population who are over
                        60 (20% in the Northern Hemisphere by 2030) and many people with
                        cognitive impairments, including language and learning disabilities.
                        More than half of people over 60 years old have some form of memory impairment, including mild cognitive
                        impairment and age-associated memory impairment
                        (AAMI).
                    </li>
                    <li>working memory and retention of
                        content.  Research indicates 50% of people surfing web pages
                        spend fewer than 12 seconds on a page; and 17% between 2 and 4
                        seconds.
                    </li>
                    <li>those with reduced attention spans, and
                        enables information to be understood more easily.   Research
                        indicates the average attention span in 2015 was 8.25
                        seconds.
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <p>A real world example is
                    someone with Dyslexia working with a task force member.
                </p>                    
                <p>"If I am faced with along paragraph with sub clauses, I will copy it out and put in line breaks
                    where I find a new keyword or point.  If I chunk the text, it is easier to
                    follow each concept. Otherwise, it is just a wash of words and I lose
                    track of which part I am meant to be concentrating on. When there are
                    no line breaks and I have to scroll across, I forget what is at the
                    beginning of the line".   Adult with Dyslexia.
                </p>
                <p>Note that reading takesfull cognitive function for many people, making remembering what was
                    written at the same time much harder.
                </p>
                <p> </p>
                <p>
                <h2 id="resources">
                    Related Resources
                </h2>
                <p>Resources are for information purposes only. No endorsement is intended or implied.</p>
                <ul>
                    <li><a href="http://www.ldatschool.ca/executive-

function/working-memory-and-cognitive-load/"> Working Memory and Cognitive Load .

Global Aging: The Challenge of Success

                    <li><a href="https://ccit.college.columbia.edu/sites/ccit/files/weinreich-web-

use-study.pdf"> Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Herder, E., and Mayer, M.

Not quite the average: An empirical study of Web use. ACM Trans. Web, 2, 1, Article 5 (February 2008), 31 pages. DOI = 10.1145/1326561.1326566.
Segmenting video (Philip Guo, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science, UC San Diego, et. al. 2014).

                    <li><a href="http://blog.edx.org/optimal-video-length-student-engagement">Optimal video length is 6 minutes or shorter</a>
                        (Analysis by Philip Guo, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science,
                        <abbr title="University of California">UC</abbr> San Diego)
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <h2>Testability</h2>
                <p>Identify the relevant standard techniques. Ensure content conforms to those standards, where they  can be used for testing, such that information is provided in manageable blocks.
                </p>
                <p>For text:</p>
                <ul><li><strong>a single point per paragraph</strong>: A paragraph should consist of one or more sentences that deal with a single point.
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <p><strong>Possible test:</strong> Identify a keyword, or point, or topic sentence (a sentence that expresses the main idea of the paragraph in which it occurs). Confirm that each sentence relates directly to that keyword, point, or topic sentence . (Keywords can be identified in the mark up with <abbr title="Cognitive accessibility">COGA</abbr> semantics at a later stage.)
                </p>
                <ul><li><strong>Short sentences</strong>:   Sentences have a  maximum of one conjunction and two commas. A sentence should consist of a single idea. Exception: Where <em> usability testing</em> has found a longer sentence to be clearer or easier to understand.</li>
                </ul>
                <p><strong>Possible test:</strong> This should be easy to test for, as one can count the numbers of conjunctions and commas. It is assumed that, by  the time this success criterion becomes adopted, automated tools will identify nonconforming sentences for the author. (This could be an algorithm using regular expressions.)
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li> <strong>Lists are used appropriately</strong>:   When there are three or more consecutive items that could be considered a  list, a list is used.
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <p><strong>Possible test:</strong>  An algorithm could identify sentences with 3 commas or colons (like this one....); keywords such as &quot;such as:&quot;, &quot;for the following reasons&quot;, or &quot;step 1&quot;; sentences with bullet points (such as a, b, c); etc.
                </p>
                <p>For a paragraph with four or more sentences, it should be confirmed that there are not three or more list items. (The first sentence may be the context, and the next three may be list items.)
                </p>
                <p>Three or more consecutive paragraphs do not have to be checked as list items because they should be made up of separate points.
                </p>
                <p><strong>For audio or visual media</strong></p>
                <p>Media are divided into programmatically-determinable and logical sequences. Media segments should be:
                </p>
                <ul>
                    <li><strong>six minutes or fewer</strong>:
                        Media should be divided into segments that are 6 minutes or fewer in duration.
                    </li>
                    <li><strong>programmatically-determinable and logical</strong>:
                        Media should be presented in a programmatically-determinable and
                        logical order.
                    </li>
                    <li> <strong>navigable</strong>: Navigation to each segment, and a
                        unique descriptive label, are provided for each media segment.
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <p>This is  testable by timing/identifing the gap between <strong>programmatically-determinable and logical </strong>; and <strong>navigation to</strong> chunks that have <strong>unique descriptive labels</strong>. If a gap is over 6 minutes, it does not conform.
                </p>
                <p>This is testable by:</p>
                <ul>
                  <li>Timing each segment. Confirm that each  media segment is  6 minutes, or under
                  </li>
                  <li>Confirming segments have unique descriptive labels</li>
                <li>Confirming each segment can be navigatable to</li>
                <li>Confirm that the segments can be programmatically determinable and are in a  logical order </li>
                </ul>
                <p>Detemining how to ensure it is logical and navigable, or unique and descriptive, is
                    described in other WCAG tests. (Will add if needed.)
                </p>
                <h2>Techniques include:</h2>
                <ul>
                    <li>breaking information into manageable blocks. <a href="https://rawgit.com/w3c/coga/master/techniques/index.html#break-your-content-into-manageable-chunks">(COGA Techniques 2.1.1)
                        </a> <a href="https:\www.w3.org\TR\UNDERSTANDING-

WCAG20\meaning.html">(for text see WCAG Guideline 3.1.5? (WCAG G153: Making the text easier to read) ;

providing content that is clear and to the point. (COGA Techniques 2.3.1), (WCAG G153: Making the text easier to read);

                    <li>using lists where three or more consecutive items are presented in a paragraph or a sentence;
                    </li>
                    <li>making manageable blocks of information and relationships programmatically determinable.<a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/#qr-content- structure-separation-programmatic">(Also see WCAG  1.3.1 Info and Relationships)</a>;
                    </li>
                    <li>making each media section navigable to, and provided with, a unique label that describes the section; and
                    </li>
                    <li>ensuring media  over five minutes are divided into programmatically determinable and logical sections.
                    </li>
                </ul>
                <h3>Common Failures for Success Criterion:</h3>
                <p> A sentence with multiple clauses, which could be tagged as a list, but is not.</p>
                <p> A paragraph with  multiple points. </p>
                <p> A long video not broken into programmatically-determinable chucks  of fewer than 6 minutes. </p>
                <p> A long video  broken into programmatically-determinable chucks, but without  a unique descriptive label on each chunk.</p>
        <h2> working groups notes (optional)</h2>
        <p> maybe replace paragraph with chunk and paragraph as an example</p>

lseeman commented 7 years ago

Complex sentences with more than one comer and conjunction become ambiguous. Machine translation and simplification algorithms are less likely to translate the meaning correctly and people are also likely to get confused. This ambiguity gets larger as the number of conjunctions and comers increase. However there are concepts that are very hard express without both a conjunction and a comer. The current proposal is a compromise between reducing ambiguity on the one hand, and making it simple to express an idea on the other. It is also measurable and indicates a short sentence with one idea. (This can be added to the description)

joshueoconnor commented 7 years ago

Assigned to John Rochford (@JohnRochfordUMMS) https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/SC_Managers_Phase1

joshueoconnor commented 7 years ago

Surveyed: https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/35422/SC_review_Jan2017/

mapluke commented 7 years ago

It is very clear from the survey that there is zero prospect of this getting accepted in its current form. There were several very good comments that were made by those who voted against its inclusion. Ones that I think are of great importance are:

this SC is only usable if the restriction to "important information" is a clear parameter;
perhaps we could limit this SC's scope to content designed to convey information the user needs to use;
I think the media portion should be broken out into another SC. I think that the aim, from now on, should be to produce one or more proposals (are more possible at this stage?) that are significantly smaller in scope that only include items that can be tested with expected high inter-evaluator reliability.

mapluke commented 7 years ago

Here is one example of a very much reduced proposed SC:

Statements which instruct a user to make a choice or take an action:

have only one instruction per sentence, except when two things have to be done simultaneously;
use sentences of no more than 15 words;
should have no more than one relative clause per sentence.

Glossary entry: Relative clauses are clauses starting with the relative pronouns who, that, which, whose, where, when.

There are plenty more bullets that could be added (I have about another 10-15) but they are increasingly difficult to reliably test by evaluators who are not experts in grammar or linguistics (in a range of languages)!

awkawk commented 7 years ago

Thanks Mike. These seem much tighter. We are going to need to provide the rationale for each of these along with the new SC to ease review in FPWD. For example, if we can say "multiple studies indicate the sentences longer than 15 words cause substantial problems..." with a citation to where the reviewer can read up on it more.

I wonder whether the following modification would be an improvement:

should have no more than one clause per sentence that starts with a relative pronoun. (then we can delete the glossary entry)

mapluke commented 7 years ago

Thanks for the positive reaction. The three bullet points, which are very similar to those proposed by the COGA TF, all come from the ETSI cognitive accessibility work and all have one or more references which I can quickly add. Your suggested alternative bullet is nice - but, in my experience, many English-speaking people have a very poor understanding of terms such as "relative pronoun". So we may well need an EXAMPLE or something to help the less literate!

awkawk commented 7 years ago

The nice thing about "relative pronoun" is that it is easy to find very consistent answers to what it is. I'm more worried about "clause"!

should have no more than one clause per sentence that starts with a relative pronoun (e.g. who, whom, which, that).

awkawk commented 7 years ago

Also, we will have techniques and understanding documents to help with this, for those of us who didn't have nuns with rulers to aid in our memorization of grammar...

mapluke commented 7 years ago

Its probably less important to know exactly what constitutes a clause.

Often it will be the thing between the "two commas" referred to in the original proposal. One problem with the original "two commas" bullet is that content could be made to conform to the proposed SC by removing all punctuation - even though this would make it much less readable!

lseeman commented 7 years ago

Hi. It was already limited to important information which we did define. But we can limit the scope more if it is needed. We should also as a definition of clause so that people can know what we are talking about without looking up techniques. It is anoying if people did not notice the limited scope and therefore voted against it

mapluke commented 7 years ago

I saw the "important information" scoping, but said ages ago that this wasn't much good. The trouble is that "important information" could be interpreted in a million different ways ie. Important in whose opinion, the service provider or the user, and how important?

I guess we could add a simple description of what a clause is, but it's not too critical to the testing of the requirement as if there is more than one who, that, etc in the instruction then it will fail.

Beat regards

Mike

Get Outlook for iOShttps://aka.ms/o0ukef

On Thu, Feb 2, 2017 at 11:09 PM +0000, "Lisa Seeman" notifications@github.com<mailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

Hi. It was already limited to important information which we did define. But we can limit the scope more if it is needed. We should also as a definition of clause so that people can know what we are talking about without looking up techniques. It is anoying if people did not notice the limited scope and therefore voted against it

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joshueoconnor commented 7 years ago

This seems to be going in the right direction :-) @JohnRochfordUMMS Please let us know when this is iterated and there is a Pull request ready to go.

mapluke commented 7 years ago

If we need a definition of a clause, which I'm not sure we really do, we could use this from the online Oxford English dictionary: "A clause is a group of words that contains a verb (and usually other components too). A clause may form part of a sentence or it may be a complete sentence in itself." The problem is how far do we propose we need to go in defining basic parts of English grammar - do we also need to define verb, sentence and word!

lseeman commented 7 years ago

For our porposis we need to add clairty to the definition so people can clearly identify the bounds of a cluse.

Hor about:

"A clause is a group of words that contains a verb (predicate) and subject. A clause can be a part of a sentence or may be an independent sentence. When it is part of a sentence, clauses are typically separated by punctuation (such as comma, semicolon or bracket) or by conjunctions (words such as "and" or "or").

All the best

Lisa Seeman

LinkedIn, Twitter

---- On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 19:14:01 +0200 mapluke<notifications@github.com> wrote ----

If we need a definition of a clause, which I'm not sure we really do, we could use this from the online Oxford English dictionary: "A clause is a group of words that contains a verb (and usually other components too). A clause may form part of a sentence or it may be a complete sentence in itself." The problem is how far do we propose we need to go in defining basic parts of English grammar - do we also need to define verb, sentence and word! — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or mute the thread.

mapluke commented 7 years ago

I think that this is getting way too complex - with long definitions for something that is not really critical to test. I think that it would be safe to re-write the last bullet as:

should have no more than one relative pronoun per sentence.

I think that it is safe to assume that there will always be a 1:1 relationship between relative pronouns and clauses that start with a relative pronoun.

I'd much rather see this simpler formulation than a longer one that means we have to include a dictionary definition of a common grammatical concept! We should probably include a definition of "relative pronoun" as, unlike clauses, the correct identification of these are critical to correct evaluation of the SC.

We could say that:

relative pronoun: any of the words "who", "whom", "whose", "which", and "that". (The source for this is the British Council who are "the world's English teaching experts".)

.

mapluke commented 7 years ago

Latest proposal (for a subset of #24): Statements which instruct a user to make a choice or take an action:

have only one instruction per sentence, except when two things have to be done simultaneously;
use sentences of no more than 15 words;
should have no more than one relative pronoun per sentence.

Glossary entry: Relative pronouns are any of the words "who", "whom", "that", "which", "whose", "where", "when" and "why".

mbgower commented 7 years ago

Important information is provided in manageable blocks.

I have some problems with the use of “is” here. Instead, how about “can be” or some other phrase that makes it clear this is required based on user demand or preferences. "Important information can be provided in manageable blocks." That seems like a much more tactical approach.

For text... For Audio...

This construct is a real departure from normal SC format. It almost seems like this is a subheading, especially the way the ‘for audio or visual media’ is put together. There are SC with bullets, some for exceptions and a few with criteria (1.4.7, 2.2.1, 2.2.2), but none where the items themselves have sub bullets. I’m going to suggest that this would be a lot easier to process if the text and the a/v media were split into two separate SC.

Sentences have a maximum of one conjunction and two commas

I guess this opens up a whole debate on the Oxford Comma, which uses a comma before the conjunction in a list of 3 or more items. In example, “He brought apples, bananas, and pears.” That is considered proper punctuation in many parts of the English speaking world, and it would cause this very simple sentence to fail this guideline. The irony here is that the Oxford Comma clarifies some potentially confusing situations, so this SC will likely have the effect of making English less clear in edge cases. Two commas seems amazingly arbitrary to me.

When there are three or more consecutive items that could be considered a list, a list is used.

This ‘3 or more’ I guess addresses the Oxford Comma, since that has exactly the same criteria. This list requirement has the potential to make content very broken up and more difficult to understand. I’d rather have this for 4 or more, but I don’t know what studies there are to back up the number being 3, and I don't see any listed. I assume primary/recency effects?

Six minutes or less: Media should be divided into segments that are 6 minutes or less in duration.

My assumption about this concerning training videos and the like is borne out by the references. Breaking AV out as a separate SC would allow the language to clarify this.

Related Glossary

The definition of "important information" is interesting. The term is not defined in current WCAG glossary material, although the phrase is used. I see less issues with applying this guidance in the limited use described here, but I don’t think folks will read to this level to understand this context. I wonder if it could be incorporated into the short description…

Information needed to complete a task or related to important user concerns is provided in manageable blocks.

Then the term “important user concerns” is the defined term, using #2. BTW, “opportunities” in this second bullet needs to be elaborated on. It’s relatively meaningless as used.

Description

The intent of this success criterion is to split information into manageable blocks to reduce cognitive load, and to aid working memory for all users.

I would argue this sentence is a potential failure of the SC as defined in this document. To practice what is being preached, I’d split this into 2 sentences.

Readable content has short paragraphs and sentences with a single focus; whilst time- based and synchronized media have navigable short sections.

Although it is not grammatically incorrect to use a semi-colon and “whilst” in front of this independent clause, I don’t see the purpose. I think it is easy – and in the spirit of this SC – to split it into 2 sentences. If there is one SC that should be mindful of language, it's this one!

Chunking content, whether it is visual or auditory, supports those with working memory deficits, such as those with learning disabilities and brain injury. The breaking down of content into small sections, whether it is developed as audio or video output; mathematical symbols; or a paragraph of text; improves levels of comprehension.

Substituting commas with semi-colons does not prevent them from being a list of three of more items. There’s a certain level of irony here when the SC for writing in chunks is, itself, unable to be drafted without breaking the rules.

ensuring media over five minutes are divided into programmatically determinable and logical sections.

Is it 5 minutes or 6?

awkawk commented 7 years ago

Updated the issue description to reflect the FPWD text.

w3c / wcag21

Manageable blocks #24

Current versions of SC and Definitions

SC Shortname: Manageable blocks

Related Glossary additions or changes

What Principle and Guideline the SC falls within.

Related Glossary

Description