Closed lseeman closed 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)
Assigned to John Rochford (@JohnRochfordUMMS) https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/SC_Managers_Phase1
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:
Here is one example of a very much reduced proposed SC:
Statements which instruct a user to make a choice or take an action:
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)!
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:
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!
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"!
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...
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!
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
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
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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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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.
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!
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.
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:
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:
.
Latest proposal (for a subset of #24): Statements which instruct a user to make a choice or take an action:
Glossary entry: Relative pronouns are any of the words "who", "whom", "that", "which", "whose", "where", "when" and "why".
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.
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.
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?
Updated the issue description to reflect the FPWD text.
Current versions of SC and Definitions
SC Shortname: Manageable blocks
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
What Principle and Guideline the SC falls within.
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.
function/working-memory-and-cognitive-load/"> Working Memory and Cognitive Load .
use-study.pdf"> Weinreich, H., Obendorf, H., Herder, E., and Mayer, M.
WCAG20\meaning.html">(for text see WCAG Guideline 3.1.5? (WCAG G153: Making the text easier to read) ;